Design Registration in India: Your Creative Guide

Design registration in India protects the look of a product. That means its shape, the pattern on it, its ornamentation, or how lines and colours are laid out. You file Form 1 online, the design gets examined, and once it clears you hold exclusive rights for 10 years under the Designs Act, 2000. Extend it once and you get 5 more, so 15 years in all.

What it won’t cover is how the product works or what it is made of. For that you need a patent. A design is only about appearance, and only for articles that are made in numbers.

Here is the part founders usually get wrong. The design has to be new on the day you file. If you have already posted photos on Instagram, listed it on a marketplace or sent a sample to a buyer, you may have lost the chance to register it. File first, launch later.

What counts as a design under the Designs Act?

Section 2(d) defines a design as the visual features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to an article, judged by the eye. A bottle shape qualifies. So does a carpet pattern, a lamp base or the body of a mixer grinder.

Method of construction, purely mechanical devices, trademarks and artistic works under the Copyright Act are out.

Who can apply?

Any person who claims to be the proprietor of the design. Individuals, companies, LLPs, firms and societies all apply the same way. Your design needs to be:

• new or original, and not published anywhere before you file

• clearly different from designs already known

• free of scandalous or obscene matter

• limited to one class of articles per application

On the form you also pick a category: natural person, startup, small entity or others. This decides your fee.

Design registration process in India, step by step

1. Search first. IP India has a public design search. See whether someone already holds something close to yours.

2. Pick the class. Designs follow the Locarno classification. If your product fits two classes, that is two applications.

3. Prepare the views. Clean drawings or photos. Usually front, back, left, right, top, bottom and one perspective view, at the same scale on a plain background.

4. File Form 1 on the IP India e-filing portal along with the statement of novelty and the fee.

5. Examination. The examiner checks the formalities and the novelty. If there are objections, you receive an examination report. Reply within three months of it. A hearing follows if the matter isn’t settled.

6. Registration. Once accepted, the design is registered and published in the Design Journal, and the certificate is issued.

Watch your dates after step 5. If you miss the reply, the application can be treated as withdrawn.

Documents required for design registration

Foreign applicants need an Indian address for service as well.

Design registration fees in India

These are official fees. Whatever a professional charges comes on top. If you see Rs 2,000 quoted for small entities somewhere, that is the old rate from before the 2021 amendment.

Don’t claim the lower tier unless you actually qualify. If the claim is wrong, the full fee was never paid, and the filing can end up with no effect.

If you are a startup, check the DPIIT startup recognition eligibility before you file.

A small entity is defined by reference to MSME law, so Udyam registration is the usual place to start.

How long does design registration take?

It depends. Some sources say four to five months when there is no objection. If an examination report and a hearing come in, eight to ten months is common, and a few sources put it at up to two years. Plan for six months to a year, and know that it moves with the office’s workload.

Benefits of design registration

• Exclusive right to make, sell and import products with that look for 10 years

• An asset you can license or sell, like any other IP

• A real deterrent when a copycat turns up with your shape on their product

If someone does copy a registered design, Section 22 lets you claim up to Rs 25,000 for each contravention, with a cap of Rs 50,000 for one design. Or you can sue for an injunction and damages. Those suits go to a District Court or higher.

Copyright is where people get caught. If a design could have been registered but wasn’t, copyright in it ends once the article has been made more than 50 times by an industrial process. So if all you hold is a sketch under copyright registration, that cover can vanish just when you start scaling production.

Design vs trademark vs copyright vs patent

Your brand name and logo belong under trademark registration. The shape of the bottle is a design. One product can need both.

Still confused about which one fits? This explainer on the difference between trademark, copyright and patent should clear it up.

Mistakes that get a design application stuck

Showing the product in public before you file is the big one. After that: putting two classes in a single application, sending messy or inconsistent views, claiming how the product works instead of how it looks, and missing the date for the objection reply.

Want a second look before you file?

Not sure your product qualifies? Talk to the LegalWiz team. A quick check now costs less than a rejected application later.