INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
IPELA Industrial Design Services
IPELA provides design registration and protection services in Ethiopia. Our industrial design services are handled by our design experts, ensuring personalized consultation and timely results.
Industrial Design Services
Registering a design gives the owner exclusive right to make, use or otherwise exploit the industrial design. IPELA accelerates the design registration process through the following Steps:
- Design application
- Design registration certificate
- Design appeal request
The above steps can be requested on separate basis according to the customer’s needs.
We renew your design by our experienced experts. Registered designs last for five years, such period may be extended for two extensions of five years each provided that a statement of use in Ethiopia is furnished. For you maintaining your design rights through efficient renewals system is of fundamental importance. IPELA efficiently handles design renewals by processing them in a timely manner through a responsible assigned expert, by keeping track of each design and informs the client about the deadline for renewal and payable fees before the expire period.
Once the design is registered, the design owner is expected to maintain the design registration or application through advance payment of annual fee to the intellectual property office for each year. To prevent the lapse of a registered design, design owners are required to pay timely their annual fee with local Intellectual property office. IPEAL is here for you, with relevant reminder of date for the annuity, to handle the payment of annual fee and forward annual fee receipt to your address.
Change in ownership of registration of an industrial design or in ownership of design application shall be effective on third parties only after such change is recoded before the intellectual property registries. IPELA effectively manages the recording of any changes in our jurisdictions.
In addition to the above, we provide the following services in our jurisdictions. Some of these services include:
- Response to office actions
- Design Defenses
- Cancellation actions
- Cease and Desist letters
- Reminder of relevant dates
- Consultancy on product design
- Drafting Transfer and Assignment Agreement
- Response to Appeal and representation during hearing.
FAQ on Industrial Design
Industrial design is any composition of lines or colors or any three dimensional form whether or not associated with lines or colors, provided that such composition or form gives a special appearance to a product of industry or handicraft and can serve as a pattern for a product of industry or handicraft. Industrial design refers the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of a product or an article not the technical or functional aspect of a product or an article.
Registration is a prerequisite to claim legal protection over an industrial design. Thus, we have to secure industrial design registration certificate from the respective intellectual or industrial property office in order to protect our rights over an industrial design.
All industrial designs do not qualify registration or protection of the law. An industrial design must full fill the following requirements of the law in order to enjoy legal protection.
- It shall be new in Ethiopia or abroad and possesses industrial applicability.
- It shall not contradict public order or morality.
- It shall not be made merely to obtain technical or functional result.
Industrial design registration application is filed to Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office by completing the application form prepared by the office. The application shall contain a request, specimen of the article embodying the industrial design or a pictorial presentation thereof and an indication of the kind of products for which the industrial design is to be used. One application shall relate to one design incorporated in one product or two or more designs incorporated in products belonging to the same class and sold or used in sets.
The owner of a certificate of registration of an industrial design shall have the exclusive right to make, use or otherwise exploit the industrial design.
The legal protection granted to an industrial design is valid for a period of five years from the filling date of the application for registration. Such period may be extended for two extensions of five years each if proof is furnished that the industrial design is being used in Ethiopia.