Good designs result from the aim to create and execute design solutions targeted at problems of form, usability and ergonomics.

They are conceptually engineered through the fusion of applied art and applied science.

A design can be a two or three-dimensional pattern applied to a product, industrial commodity or handicraft.

It is also concerned with the creation of a shape, configuration or composition of pattern and/or colour, or an aesthetically enhanced combination of such in three-dimensional form.

Upon registration, exclusive rights will be granted to the visual design of objects provided they are not purely utilitarian.


What Is Industrial Designs?


Industrial design means features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article by any industrial process, being features which in the finished article appeal to and are judged by the eye.

Criteria of registration:

  1. 1. A design should be globally novel;
  2. The article must be able to be made and sold separately;
  3. Must not include a method of construction;
  4. Must not be dictated solely by the function which the article has to perform;
  5. Must not be dependent upon the appearance of another article; and
  6. Must not be designed to form as an integral part.

Duration Of Protection

Maximum of 15 years / 25 years (for filling made on or after July 2013) (extendable every subsequent 5 years).

How Can Industrial Designs Be Protected?


In most countries, an industrial design must be registered in order to be protected under industrial design law.

As a general rule, to be registrable, the design must be "new" or "original".

Different countries have varying definitions of such terms, as well as variations in the registration process itself.

Generally, "new" means that no identical or very similar design is known to have existed before.

Once a design is registered, a registration certificate is issued.

In some countries, industrial design and copyright protection can exist concurrently.

In other countries (i.e. Malaysia), they are mutually exclusive: once the owner chooses one kind of protection, he can no longer invoke the other.