Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

New digital service for designs to deliver reduced registration fees, says UK government

08 Jan 2016, 2:28 pm

The "significant cost savings" that the UK government will see from allowing businesses to register and renew registered designs via a new digital service are to be passed on to companies, the UK's intellectual property minister has announced.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has opened a new consultation on the new fees it plans to charge for applying for and renewing registered UK designs (20-page / 639KB PDF). Proposed charges have been outlined for applications and renewals made via both the digital service, which is operational but still under development, and those that are paper-based. It will be cheaper to apply for registered designs via the new digital service under the planned new fees model.

The new digital service for designs was launched by the IPO in September 2015 and initially allowed users to apply to register a single design only. It was subsequently upgraded to allow users to file multiple applications but the system is still in its beta testing stage.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe, UK minister for intellectual property, said: "I was delighted to have the opportunity to test the new online application service and to hear how quickly it has been taken up by users. After just three weeks, 67% of applications were being filed online."

"This move to digital will result in significant cost savings and these should be passed on to users of the system," she said.

The IPO is consulting on the proposed new fees until 29 January.

"Our proposed fee model covers the cost of providing the design service through the application and renewal fees," the IPO said. "This allows the government to promote access to designs at a low upfront cost – allowing innovative business to protect their early investment in ideas – while recouping the whole costs of these services through renewal fees over the life of the product."

"The increased cost of renewal fees, for each 5 year period, also acts to encourage designers to think about renewing their design and to consider whether their design is still economically viable. If it is not, they will allow their design registration to lapse, and so the design will become free for other companies to use and so build on their earlier design and innovation. If renewal fees are set too low designers might renew unused and uneconomical designs, cluttering the register and acting as a barrier to the potential for further innovation and growth," it said.