Need for Unregistered Design Rights in India: A Contemplative Cogitation

Abstract

India has a specific legislation for the scheme of industrial designs which mandates statutory registration as a prerequisite
to obtain IP rights in designs. Industries characterised by products having short lifecycle, release colossal number
of new designs in the market in short intervals of time. Due to the dynamism of these sectors, registering all the industrial
designs, is not practically and commercially feasible. As the present design regime in India, governed by the Designs Act,
2000, only protects the registered designs, it leaves the unregistered ones open to rampant copying and piracy. The European
Union and the United Kingdom are two jurisdictions which offer advanced protection to the unregistered designs, which has
proved to provide a competitive edge to their industries, by incentivising their design innovation. Against this background,
the article seeks to critically analyse the Designs Act, 2000 to locate loopholes under it, in extending protection to the
unregistered designs, undertake a comparative analysis of the unregistered design protection in European Union and United
Kingdom, and propose suggestions for introduction of unregistered design rights in India. Further, rapid design piracy
caused by 3-D printing, mass production techniques and advanced technologies, supports the urgent need to extend an
argument for protection of unregistered designs under the Indian Design regime.