Design Registration in India

A design registration protects the visual appearance of an article: its shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours.

It protects how a product looks, not how it works. Function is the domain of patents.

Quick reference

What is protected	The appearance of an article — shape, configuration, pattern, ornament, colours
Must be	New or original, and not disclosed anywhere before filing
Application	One design, one article, one Locarno class, with representations and a statement of novelty
Fee	₹1,000 for individuals, startups and small entities; ₹4,000 for others
Objections	Application must be in order within six months of filing, extendable by three
Term	Ten years from filing, extendable once by five

File before you launch

This is the rule that matters most, and the one most often broken.

A design must be new or original and must not have been disclosed to the public anywhere in India or abroad before the filing date.

Once your product is in the public domain, you generally cannot register its design. Not after the launch, not after the trade show, not after the catalogue went out.

For design-led businesses, this means the filing decision has to sit before the product release, not after it. By the time a competitor copies a successful product, it is usually too late to register the design that would have stopped them.

What can be registered

The design must be:

New or original, not previously published or publicly disclosed
Applied to an article by an industrial process
Judged solely by the eye in the finished article
Not a mere mechanical device
Not contrary to public order or morality

What cannot be registered includes designs dictated solely by function, mere variations of known shapes, and anything that is really a trademark, property mark or artistic work rather than a design.

Term of protection

Ten years from registration, extendable by a further five years, on application before expiry.

Fifteen years is the maximum, and there is no further renewal. This is a meaningfully shorter horizon than a trademark, which renews indefinitely.

Classification

Designs are classified under the Locarno Classification, which sorts designs by the type of article rather than by appearance.

Classification matters for searching and for defining the scope of the registration.

How the application runs

The application is filed online with the Designs Office on the prescribed form, naming the article and its Locarno class, with representations — drawings or photographs showing every view needed to see the whole design — and a statement of novelty saying what is claimed to be new. Words, letters and trademarks shown in the representations are disclaimed. One application covers one design in one class; variants need separate applications.

An examiner checks formalities and novelty and sends any objections, which must be cleared within six months of the filing date, extendable by three months on request before the six months run out. Once accepted, the design is registered, a certificate issues and the registration is published in the journal. The ten-year term runs from the filing date, so time in examination is not lost. The separate guides on examination and objections and fees cover each step in detail.

Search before filing

Because novelty is the core requirement, it is worth searching before filing to establish whether the same or a similar design already exists on the register.

This also matters in reverse. If you find someone has registered a design you developed first, establishing prior ownership is possible but considerably harder than having filed in time.

Enforcement

Piracy of a registered design is actionable under the Designs Act, 2000. Remedies include injunction and damages.

Where design and trademark overlap

Design protection expires. Trademark protection does not.

Owners of distinctive product shapes sometimes seek trademark protection for the same shape once design rights lapse, effectively seeking indefinite protection. Indian courts treat this cautiously.

The Harpic bottle dispute raised exactly this question, and Section 9(3) of the Trade Marks Act limits registration of shapes that result from the nature of the goods, are necessary to obtain a technical result, or give substantial value to the goods. See marks that cannot be registered.

There is a related interaction with copyright. Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act ends copyright in an artistic work once it has been industrially applied more than fifty times without design registration, a point the Supreme Court clarified in Cryogas Equipment Pvt Ltd v Inox India Ltd.

The practical consequence: for a design-led product, choosing between design registration and reliance on copyright is a decision with consequences, and it needs making early.

Frequently asked questions

Can I register a design after launching the product? Generally no. Prior public disclosure destroys novelty. File before the product enters the public domain.

How long does design protection last in India? Ten years from registration, extendable by five, for a maximum of fifteen years. There is no further renewal.

What is the difference between a design and a patent? A design protects appearance. A patent protects function and technical effect.

Can I protect the shape of my product as a trademark instead? Sometimes, but Section 9(3) of the Trade Marks Act limits shape marks, and Indian courts are cautious about using trademark law to extend expired design protection.

Does copyright protect my design instead? Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act ends copyright in an artistic work industrially applied more than fifty times without design registration. Relying on copyright for a product design that will be mass produced is risky.

What is the Locarno Classification? The international system for classifying designs by type of article, used for filing and searching.

Useful official resources

Launching a design-led product? Talk to us before it goes public. After launch, the option usually closes.