Register a industrial design

The patent and trademark office usually takes a period of between 6 and 12 months to approve an industrial design, based on the filing date of the industrial design application. This period may be affected by potential formal defects detected by the patent and trademark office, which will notify you and guide you on how to resolve such defects. To avoid mistakes in the presentation of an industrial design, it is advisable to seek advice from experts or intellectual property agents.

The industrial design can protect the invention for a maximum period of 25 years. Unlike the Utility Model or patents of inventions, it will be necessary to submit renewals every 5 years.

Through the patent office, you can request to protect the industrial design in those countries that are commercially interesting for marketing the invention. In this regard, you will need to pay the corresponding fees for each country where you decide to protect the invention. This selection and payment of fees can be done at the same patent office where you submit your initial industrial design registration application.

Any person or company can file for an Industrial Design registration at the corresponding patent office. If you are not a resident of the country where you intend to register at the patent office, it will be an additional requirement to submit the Industrial Design application through an intellectual property agent.

The official fees for registering an Industrial Design are less than 80 Euros. However, it's important to remember that the cost to register an Industrial Design can be affected by the fees of the intellectual property advisor you choose for the process. Generally, registering an Industrial Design with an expert usually costs less than 1,000 Euros.

The truth is you can’t define if an Industrial Design or a Utility Model is better. This comparison depends on the details of each strategy and the characteristics of the invention. In most cases where people aim to register an invention that improves an existing product, a Utility Model is mistakenly recommended instead of an Industrial Design. It is crucial that you can define which elements constitute an improvement in the product you intend to transform. If these improvements are achieved through changes in form—changes that affect the product's aesthetics—it is very likely that an Industrial Design is better than a Utility Model.