This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Community design
- Date of last review:
- 24/10/2025
- Initial creation date:
- 04/07/2011
- Summary code:
-
- 24.06.03.08 Inventions, trade marks & designs
- EUROVOC descriptor:
- Directory code:
- Summarised document(s):
- Author:
- Publications Office of the European Union
- Responsible entity(ies):
- Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
European Union designs
SUMMARY OF:
Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 amending Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 on Community designs
WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE REGULATION?
- Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 has introduced a system for obtaining a Community design providing for uniform protection throughout the territory of the European Union (EU). It sets out the procedure for registering Community designs with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, formerly the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market. This EU-wide system coexists with national design-protection systems. The main provisions of the national laws of the EU Member States have been harmonised by Directive 98/71/EC on the legal protection of designs, which will be repealed as from by Directive (EU) 2024/2823.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/2822, along with Directive (EU) 2024/2823, aims to update the existing rules to improve the protection of industrial designs in the era of digital design and evolving technologies, such as 3D printing, making the design-protection system fit for purpose in the digital age, and more accessible and efficient by streamlining and harmonising registration procedures. It also aims to complete the single market for repair spare parts.
KEY POINTS
Modernisation and more legal certainty
Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 updates the definition of ‘design’ to include animation – a term encompassing transition, movement and other forms of animation.
It also broadens the product definition, explicitly including non-physical items. A product can be any industrial or handicraft item – other than computer programs – irrespective of whether it is embodied in a physical object or materialised in a non-physical form. The definition now covers sets of articles and spatial arrangements of items intended to form an interior or exterior environment, along with graphic works or symbols, logos, surface patterns and graphical user interfaces.
The scope of rights has been broadened to fight infringement in the context of the deployment of 3D printing technologies that facilitate the copying of protected designs and the counterfeiting of products in transit.
Opening up the spare parts market
The following adjustments have been made to the repair clause already contained in Regulation (EC) No 6/2002:
- it is explicitly limited to form dependent ‘must match’ parts used for the purpose of repair;
- it involves a duty to inform the public about the commercial origin of parts to be used for repair.
Main procedural rules
- Detailed requirements for the representation of designs.
- Permission for multiple applications to combine several designs in one application without being restricted to the same Locarno class.
- Limited substantive examination: grounds for refusal are set out exhaustively and with a view to keeping the burden for applicants at a minimum. The rules include the improper use of items covered by Article 6ter of the Paris Convention as grounds for refusal.
Streamlining of procedures
- Multiple applications: abolition of the unity of class requirement but a maximum cap of 50 designs introduced.
- Notification and communication: henceforth, only by electronic means.
- Allowing for the cancellation of register entries and the revocation of decisions.
- Allowing for the continuation of proceedings.
Limitation of rights
Amending Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 extends the exclusions to:
- acts for the purpose of identifying or referring to a product as that of the design right holder;
- acts for the purpose of comment, critique or parody.
Adjustment of EU design fees
The new fee structure involves several changes, in particular higher renewal fees to keep only active, market-relevant designs on the register.
FROM WHEN DOES THE REGULATION APPLY?
Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 has applied since , although some of its articles requiring the adoption of implementing or delegated acts will apply from .
BACKGROUND
For further information, see:
- Designs (European Union Intellectual Property Office)
- Industrial design protection (European Commission).
MAIN DOCUMENTS
Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of on Community designs (OJ L 3, , pp. 1–24).
Successive amendments to Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 have been incorporated into the original text. This consolidated version is of documentary value only.
Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 of the European Parliament and of the Council of amending Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 on Community designs and repealing Commission Regulation (EC) No 2246/2002 (OJ L, 2024/2822, ).
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