On 1 April 2023, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) celebrated the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Registered Community Design (RCD) regime and its role in promoting innovation and creativity in the EU. To mark the occasion, the EUIPO will simultaneously launch a new, user-friendly form of Registered design application (the new RCD e-Application) that will enable users to protect their intellectual property in a simpler way than ever before.

history

On 1 April 2003, the EUIPO opened the doors for registration of newly registered Community designs. RCD has proven to be a game changer for businesses across the EU.

Previously, companies had to go through a cumbersome and costly process to register their designs individually in each EU country, but with RCD, companies can protect their designs in all EU member states by submitting a single application.

Elizabeth of the EUIPO Appeals Committee. Elisabeth Fink, head of the European Commission, said: "The Community Design represents a qualitative leap forward in design protection in Europe. Before it came into force, there was virtually no uniform regulation. So, for the first time, we are trying to reach a consensus on what design protection means."

The first RCD

The first RCD application was submitted by the Japanese company Casio Computer for its famous calculator. The application was accepted on January 1, 2003 and registered on April 1, 2003. The application includes various images of calculators and is classified as "electronic calculators" in the Locarno Classification, an international classification of industrial designs.

Although the design expired in 2013 and was not renewed, it remains of timeless significance and is an important milestone in the history of design protection in the EU. As the first RCD ever awarded, it sets a precedent for future design registrations, while also contributing to the development of EU design law.

Since then, Casio has applied for 599 designs at EUIPO, including electronic devices such as digital cameras, electronic pianos, telephones, various watches, as well as different models of its popular calculators.

Soon after the registration of the Casio calculator, many other brand designs followed, including pens, jeans, shorts, early digital cameras, and even toy Porsches, as well as some iconic designs such as the Biletti Mocha pot, Piaggio's Wasp motorcycle, and the Formula One logo.

Today's RCD

RCD has revolutionised the way companies protect their designs in the EU market. EUIPO has received more than 1.8 million applications for RCD since its inception, and RCD has become an important tool for protecting intellectual property rights and promoting innovation.

EUIPO currently registers nearly 100,000 designs per year. In 2022, the Bureau received approximately 106,000 design applications, and in 2021, the number of design applications reached a record high of nearly 115,000. As a result, RCD has become a valuable intellectual property that underpins the EU economy and provides jobs.

In order to highlight the best designs in all design applications received by EUIPO, EUIPO holds a biennial celebration of the "DesignEuropa" Award. These awards recognize excellence in industrial design and design management and highlight the importance of design in today's world. The fourth award ceremony will take place in Berlin in September 2023.

New RCD Simple application form

To coincide with the celebration of this milestone, the EUIPO launched the RCD Simple Application Form on April 1, 2023.

This easy-to-use online form is designed to help businesses, designers and entrepreneurs submit their EU designs. The form comes with a virtual assistant to guide the applicant through the process.

The registration fee is 350 euros, however, SME Fund applicants can receive a reimbursement of up to 75%, meaning that they can protect their design for only 88 euros.

This user-friendly form also fast-tracks the application process, allowing applicants to complete the form in 10 minutes and receive their registered designs within 2 days.

Applicants can use the new RCD electronic application form from 1 April 2023.

EUIPO considers the user experience to be of Paramount importance to it and therefore encourages customers to provide feedback and comments (to information@euipo.europa.eu).

What will be the development of design in the coming future?

At present, the European Union is improving the Design Directive and the Community Design Regulation. On 28 November 2022, the European Commission adopted a legislative package reformulating the Design Directive and amending the Community Design Regulation.

This initiative aims to modernize the legal provisions on designs and make design protection more efficient and convenient in the digital age. The initiative adjusts design and product definitions to allow digital design to be protected, including virtual Spaces, graphical user interfaces, and clarifies the subject of design protection.

Among other things, the revised proposal for the Community Design Regulation changes the name of "registered Community design" to "registered EU design" and expands the scope of design rights to combat infringement and counterfeiting in the field of 3D printing, as well as rules for dealing with counterfeit products in customs procedures. The proposal also adjusts the fee structure and level to make the costs associated with registering an EU design more affordable for smes and individual designers.

The proposal for the Design Directive finally opens up the market for spare parts, adding a number of major procedural rules to the existing substantive rules to ensure harmonisation of the design protection regime across the EU, thereby ensuring complementarity and interoperability between the Community and the design systems of the Member States.

The legislative package is currently under discussion and adoption procedures in the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. The parties concerned shall translate the new rules of the Design Directive into the law of the Member States within two years after the date of entry into force of the Directive.

To learn more about designs and how to protect them, visit EUIPO's Design Hub.