Regulations on novelty of industrial designs
The novelty of an industrial design is one of the factors determining whether the industrial design is protected or not. Therefore, before applying for protection, the owner must prove the novelty.
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An industrial design is the external appearance of a product, represented by lines, shapes, colors or a combination of those elements (Clause 13, Article 4 of the 2005 Intellectual Property Law as amended and supplemented in 2009).
Accordingly, industrial design makes a difference for each product of each enterprise. Therefore, the registration of product industrial design protection will help protect the industrial design owner against unauthorized use by others, bring economic benefits to the owner from the unauthorized use of the exclusive commercial exploitation of the product bearing its design.
What is the novelty of an industrial design?
Article 65 of the Intellectual Property Law 2005 regulates:
An industrial design is considered novelty if it is significantly different from industrial designs that have been publicly disclosed in the form of use, written description or any other form in the country or abroad before the filing date or prior to the priority date if the industrial design application enjoys priority.
Two industrial designs are not considered to be significantly different from each other if they only differ in design features that are not easily recognizable, memorable and cannot be used to distinguish the two industrial designs overall.
An industrial design is considered to have not been publicly disclosed if only a limited number of people know it and are obliged to keep it secret.
An industrial design should not be deemed to have lost its novelty if it is published in the following cases, provided that the application for registration of the industrial design is filed within six months from the date of publication:
a) The industrial design is announced by another person without the permission of the person having the right to registration specified in Article 86 of this Law;
b) The industrial design is published in the form of a scientific report by the person having the right to registration specified in Article 86 of this Law;
c) The industrial design is displayed by the person having the right to registration specified in Article 86 of this Law at a national exhibition of Vietnam or at an officially international exhibition or officially recognized international exhibition.
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Intellectual Property and Innovation Magazine