INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS

We assist clients with drafting, prosecuting, maintaining, licensing, and freedom to use opinions on industrial designs. A registration for an industrial design protects the look of your product for up to 10 years in Canada. Once you obtain such a registration, you may bring a legal action against competitors who try to copy your design, or you may sell or license your rights to others to make, use and sell your design.

To be eligible for registration, your design must be original. For practical purposes, this means that it cannot closely resemble any other publicly disclosed design that came before it, even if that other design is also your own. In Canada, there is a grace period of 1 year to file an application for your design after it has been publicly disclosed by you (and not a third party).

As industrial designs are only valid and enforceable in the countries in which they are registered, we can also assist you with the filing of your design in countries outside of Canada.

Information on Industrial Designs is available through the Industrial Design webpage of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00004.html

If you are instead looking to protect the functional aspect of your design or product, please go to our Patents page HERE.

If you are instead looking to protect the shape of the packaging of your goods as a unique identifier (brand) for you or your company as the source of the goods, please go to our Trademarks page HERE.

Brief Guidelines for Preparing Your Own Industrial Design Drawings

For further information or assistance, please contact us by phone (416) 847-0054 or by email at mail@methodlaw.ca.