Designs in the European Union

A design generally means the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colors, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation.

A product can be defined as any industrial or handmade item, including inter alia parts intended to be assembled into a complex product, packaging, get-up, graphic symbols and typographic typefaces, but excluding computer programs.

Said design can be protected by an unregistered or registered Community design (RCD) to the extent that it is new and has individual characteristics.