Skip to main content

The purpose of the Design Act is to protect novel designs that are applied to or govern the shape of an article which is to be manufactured and marketed on a commercial scale, with emphasis on the visual impact of the finished article.

The Design Act grants protection to the rights holder, who may enjoy an exclusive right to the embedded commercial value of its design. An industrial design applied to an article may enjoy protection through registration if it is new or original, provided that it is a non-functional feature of shape, configuration, pattern, ornamentation or a composition of lines of colours, whether in two- or three-dimensional form or both. The Act uses a ‘first to file, first to get’ system; the inventor or creator of a design must file the application for registration to prevent other persons claiming rights on that particular design.

Authored by Archana Shanker.

This chapter was published in International Design Protection: A Global Handbook. 

To continue reading, please contact us at email@anandandanand.com

Most Recent

News & Insights

VIEW ALL
News & Updates
Jan 02, 2026

On 24th December, 2025, Delhi High Court delivered a groundbreaking judgment in Colgate Palmolive Company & Anr. v. NIXI & Anr. (CS(COMM) 193/2019), addressing

LANDMARK RULING ON DOMAIN NAME FRAUD AND SYSTEMIC REFORMS IN DIGITAL COMMERCE
Thought Leadership
Jan 01, 2026

First published on Enterprise IT World. Authored by Subroto Kumar Panda As we stand on the final day of 2025, reflecting on a year of dizzying

The Great Dissolve: Re-Engineering Enterprise Workflows for the 2026 AI Paradigm
Thought Leadership
Dec 19, 2025

First published on Express Computer. Authored by Subroto Kumar Panda The notification of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025, marks

The DPDP: An 18-month compliance imperative for the C-suite
News & Updates, Thought Leadership
Dec 16, 2025

‘First published on India Business Law Journal’ By: Pravin Anand and Dr. Ajai Garg Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fuelling one of the most significant

Law can keep us safe from superintelligence