Design Glossary — Industrial Design Terms

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Absolute Novelty: India requires a design to be new anywhere in the world. Any prior publication or public use — including the proprietor's own catalogue, website or trade show display — destroys novelty, which is why filing must precede disclosure.
Applicant: The person or entity claiming to be the proprietor of the design, who files the application and will hold the registration.
Article: Any article of manufacture, or any substance, artificial or partly artificial and partly natural, including a part of an article made and sold separately. A design must be applied to an article — it cannot exist in the abstract.
Assignment: Transfer of ownership of a registered design. It must be in writing and applied for entry in the register within six months of execution, extendable.

Cancellation: A registration may be cancelled at any time by petition to the Controller under Section 19 — on grounds of prior registration in India, prior publication anywhere, want of novelty or originality, non-registrability, or that it is not a design within the statutory definition. Cancellation may also be raised as a defence in an infringement suit.
Classification: Designs are classified under the Locarno Classification, by the article to which the design is applied. India adopted the current Locarno edition through the Designs (Amendment) Rules, 2021.
Composition of Lines or Colours: One of the forms a design may take under Section 2(d), alongside shape, configuration, pattern and ornament — provided it is applied to an article and appeals to the eye.
Controller of Designs: The officer administering the Designs Act, sitting within the CGPDTM. Design applications in India are filed at the Patent Office branch at Kolkata, which houses the Designs Wing.
Copyright in a Design: The exclusive right in a registered design is called copyright in the design under the Designs Act, and it is distinct from copyright under the Copyright Act. It lasts ten years from registration, extendable by five.

Design: Under Section 2(d), the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to an article by any industrial process, judged solely by the eye. It protects appearance — not how the article works.
Designs Act, 2000: The statute governing industrial design protection in India, with the Designs Rules, 2001 as amended. It replaced the 1911 Act and brought Indian law into line with TRIPS.
Duration: Ten years from the date of registration, extendable by a further five on application before expiry — fifteen years in total, after which the design falls into the public domain.

Eye Appeal: The requirement that a design appeal to and be judged solely by the eye. Features that the user never sees, or that exist only to make the article work, fall outside protection.

Fraudulent or Obvious Imitation: The test for design infringement — piracy of a registered design under Section 22. An imitation need not be exact; the question is whether the two look substantially the same to the eye of an informed observer.
Functional Design: A design dictated solely by the function the article performs is excluded from registration. Where a shape is the only way to achieve a technical result, design law will not lock it up.

Informed Observer: The notional person through whose eyes designs are compared — someone familiar with the field and its existing designs, more discerning than a casual purchaser but not an expert.
Inspection of Register: Once a design is registered, the register and the representations are open to public inspection, and certified copies may be obtained.

Locarno Classification: The international classification of industrial designs by article type, used to define the scope of a design application and to search prior designs.

Novelty: A design must be new — not previously registered in India or published anywhere in the world, and significantly distinguishable from known designs or combinations of them.

Originality: The design must originate with its author, or where old in itself, must be new in its application. A known motif applied for the first time to a new article can be original in the statutory sense.

Piracy of a Registered Design: Applying, or causing to be applied, a registered design or a fraudulent or obvious imitation of it to any article in the same class for sale, without the proprietor's licence. Section 22 provides for damages capped at fifty thousand rupees per design in a contract-damages claim, or an injunction and full damages in a regular suit.
Prior Publication: Any disclosure of the design to the public before the filing date — in a catalogue, a magazine, an earlier registration, a website or at an exhibition. It defeats novelty, subject to the limited exhibition exception.
Priority Claim: A claim to the filing date of an earlier application in a Convention country, available if the Indian application is filed within six months of that earlier filing.

Reciprocity Application: An application filed in India claiming priority from a first filing in a reciprocity or Convention country, within the six-month window.
Register of Designs: The record maintained by the Patent Office of registered designs, their proprietors, assignments and extensions.
Registered Proprietor: The person entered in the Register of Designs as the owner of the design, entitled to sue for piracy.
Registration Certificate: The certificate issued on registration, confirming the design number and date and the article to which the design applies.
Representation: The drawings or photographs showing the design from every relevant view. Their quality decides the scope of protection — inconsistencies between views are a common ground of objection.

Section 15(2) Copyright Act: The provision that ends copyright in a design capable of being registered under the Designs Act once the article has been reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process. It forces a choice: register the design, or lose the ability to control industrial reproduction. The Supreme Court set out the two-pronged test for applying it in Cryogas Equipment v. Inox India.
Startup Fee Concession: Reduced official fees for startups and small entities, extended to foreign startups by the Designs (Amendment) Rules, 2021.
Statement of Novelty: The statement filed with the representations identifying what exactly is claimed as new — the shape, the surface pattern, the configuration. Claiming the whole article when only part is new is a frequent and costly drafting error.

Trade Variant: A minor or commonplace variation of an existing design. Trade variants are not registrable, as they lack the significant distinguishability the Act requires.

Unregistered Design: India provides no free-standing unregistered design right. Without registration, the only recourse against copying is passing off in the get-up, which requires goodwill and misrepresentation.