Novelty in design: credit where it’s due

The intended subject matter of design protection under the Designs Act, 2000, is any article upon which a design is applied or capable of being applied to enhance its attractiveness and appeal. The basic criterion for registration of a design in respect of an article or part of an article is novelty. (It is noteworthy that if a design has been registered in respect of an article in a particular class, such registration shall not bar the registration of the same design in respect of a different article in the same class on the ground of novelty.)

To meet the criterion of novelty, the impugned design should be “new or original” according to section 4 of the act, which provides several definitions.

Firstly, “new or original” signifies that the design has been created as a result of the author’s own intellectual activity. The design must present, for the first time, some pattern, shape or ornament to be applied by a manual, mechanical, or chemical means to a particular subject matter, to which it has not been applied before.

Abhai Pandey is a lawyer with Lex Orbis IP Practice, a law firm specializing in intellectual property issues.