Designs law rarely makes headlines. It is the quiet, slightly awkward middle child of IP: less glamorous than trade marks, less lucrative than patents and much less argued about at dinner parties than copyright and AI. But for anyone who makes products that people buy partly because of how they look, whether that is a handbag, a kettle or an app, it matters a great deal.
On 4 November 2026 the government (through the UK Intellectual Property Office) published its response to last year's consultation on changes to the UK designs framework. It is a long document, and a sensible one. Some big ideas have been shelved, some modest ones are being taken forward, and a few difficult questions have been parked, politely, for another day.
It was not a consultation that passed people by. There were 90 responses, from lawyers, trade bodies, designers, multinationals and academics. The list of respondents is a fair cross-section of the people who care about this: the British Brands Group, Anti Copying in Design, the Design Council, the Federation of Small Businesses, eBay, Jaguar Land Rover, P&G, among many others. Lewis Silkin responded too.
Most of the changes will only arrive "when parliamentary time allows", a phrase that has been known to cover long periods. Even so, the direction is reasonably clear. Here is what brand owners and creative businesses need to know.
Tackling copycat registrations
The headline issue is what the IPO calls anti-competitive filings. At the moment the UK registry does not check whether a design is new before registering it. That keeps registration quick and cheap, which users value, but it also lets some register designs that are not theirs (sometimes using a brand's own website photographs) and then use them to have genuine products taken down from online marketplaces. Respondents reported spending anything from under £10,000 to over £50,000 dealing with the fallout.
The government will give the registrar a power to search and examine some applications for novelty and individual character, the two tests a design must pass to be valid. This will not apply to everything, only to a proportion of applications, guided by criteria still to be written. Respondents suggested re-filings of previously cancelled designs, apparently generic products and suspected anti-competitive filings as obvious candidates.
Personally, I would have been content to leave the system as it is. Any targeted search depends on what an examiner happens to know, and a familiar consumer product is far more likely to be spotted than an obscure industrial component. It will also cost the IPO time, and objections cost applicants money. The response acknowledges those concerns but concludes that the majority wanted some intervention. Brand owners should expect the occasional objection, and should keep good records of when and how their designs were created.
More welcome is what has been dropped. A proposed two-stage system, under which designs would be partly registered and then examined before they could be enforced, has gone, as too complex. So have proposals for opposition and observation periods. These would have expected businesses to watch the designs journal and object to applications, which favours those with the resources to do so and would slow everything down. A suggested fast-track invalidation process will be considered instead, which sounds rather more useful.
A new "bad faith" ground (the idea that an application made dishonestly can be refused) has not been adopted yet. The government wants to work out what it would actually mean, and what evidence would be needed, before deciding. That caution is justified. Bad faith has proved slippery in trade mark law, and most of the examples given in the consultation would already be invalid because the design was not new.
Keeping new designs under wraps for longer
Deferment lets an applicant file for a registered design but delay its publication, so a new product can stay secret until launch. It currently runs for 12 months. The government will put it on a statutory footing and extend it to 30 months, matching the EU and the international Hague system. Respondents were almost evenly split between 18 and 30 months; the government was persuaded by alignment.
For businesses with long lead times, or filing in several countries at once, that is good news. There are two counterweights. Some basic details of a deferred application (applicant, representative, filing and priority dates) will be published online. And the "prior use" defence will be extended, so a third party who innocently starts using a similar design during the deferment period will have some protection. Thirty months is a long time for a competitor not to know what is coming, so the balance is understandable, even if it makes deferment a little less of a trump card.
Apps, screens and animations
Digital designers have long complained that the UK system was not built for things that move. The government agrees. It will amend the legal definitions of "design" and "product" to make clear that animations and transitions can be registered, and will extend the rights of a registered design owner to cover creating, downloading or sharing files that record the design. The extent to which this mirrors the EU's new rules is still being considered, but the direction is towards alignment, which is probably sensible.
The IPO has already published practice guidance on icons, graphical user interfaces and animated designs, and it will look at accepting video and 3D file formats as part of its digital transformation programme. It also plans to publish the optional written description that applicants can file alongside their pictures.
A word of caution on that last point. Written descriptions sound helpful, but the trade mark world has recently shown how much trouble they can cause, with the Court of Appeal grappling with descriptions in Thom Browne v adidas and Babek v Iceland (see my IPKat post here). There is no case law yet on descriptions in designs. Anyone who uses one should treat it as part of the scope of protection, not as a marketing blurb, and draft it accordingly.
AI-generated designs
The consultation proposed removing the existing provisions that protect designs generated by a computer without a human designer. Most respondents opposed that, and the government has backed down: the current law stays in place while it monitors how AI is used in design and looks at what is happening in other IP rights. Given how hard it is becoming to tell "AI-assisted" from "AI-generated", and that this sits alongside the even bigger AI and copyright debate, that seems right. Doing nothing is, for once, a reasonable policy.
Unregistered designs: simplification, but not at any price
The UK has two overlapping unregistered rights: supplementary unregistered design (covering appearance, and largely copying the old EU right) and UK unregistered design right (covering shape and configuration). It is complicated. A few law firms told the IPO that practitioners can cope with it but their clients cannot, which is about as candid as lawyers get.
The proposal to abolish UK unregistered design right has been dropped. That is a relief. Respondents pointed out how valuable it is in litigation, sometimes succeeding where a registered design claim fails. The government will instead keep working on consolidating the two rights and, at a minimum, harmonise when protection starts and how long it lasts. There was good support for a 10-year term, but the government will assess the economic impact first, partly over concerns that long free protection might put people off registering.
On the overlap with copyright, which the WaterRower case has done little to resolve, the government will do nothing and let the courts work it out. Most respondents said there is still confusion, but there was no consensus on the fix. Not satisfying, but probably better than a hasty statutory answer.
Launching abroad without losing UK protection
Since Brexit, a product first shown in Paris or Milan may not get unregistered protection in the UK, and vice versa. Respondents reported real cost and disruption. The government's answer is to legislate so that a first disclosure anywhere in the world can give rise to supplementary unregistered design protection in the UK, possibly with a grace period.
For a fashion house launching on a foreign catwalk, that removes a genuine headache. The concern is that it is one-sided: it does nothing to protect designs first launched in the UK across the EU, and it gives businesses no particular reason to launch here. A reciprocal arrangement with the EU, perhaps as part of the wider reset, would have been the neater answer. The government says it will keep monitoring legal developments on that question.
Enforcement
Two final points. First, there will be no new criminal offence for copying unregistered designs; the evidence did not show it would be proportionate. Second, the government will explore letting straightforward, lower-value registered design cases be heard in the small claims track of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. That could help small designers, although registered design disputes often involve challenges to validity, and losing the limited costs recovery available elsewhere in IPEC is not an obvious win for access to justice. Watch this space.
What this means for brands
Nothing changes tomorrow. But brand owners and creative businesses can usefully start preparing:
Keep dated records of design development. If searches and objections arrive, proving novelty will matter.Think about deferment strategy now. A 30-month window, aligned with the EU, makes coordinated international filing easier. Digital products deserve a fresh look. Interfaces and animations that were awkward to register may soon be squarely protectable. Draft any written description carefully, as part of the legal scope of the design. Do not stop registering. Unregistered rights remain valuable, but their future shape and term are still uncertain.
Overall, the government has listened. The worst ideas have gone, the most useful ones are going ahead and the hardest questions have been deferred... so to speak.
