Illustrations of your design

Your illustrations must present an accurate and complete picture of your design.

Design registration protects your design as shown on the application form so it is important that you show as clearly as possible what your design looks like to the eye.

This means that if your design is three-dimensional your illustrations should include a series of views from different angles to show the full overall appearance of the product to which the design is applied.

If you only want to protect the design of part of a product, or if you want to limit the scope of the application to a particular element such as shape or decoration, you should mark your illustrations clearly by including a partial disclaimer.

If you need to explain any design features which cannot be clearly seen in your illustrations, or to help us classify it, you can include a brief description of the design or the feature on page 2 of your application form. Please note that this description will not appear on your certificate or on our electronic register, though it may help us to classify your design correctly.

Views of the design

Your illustrations should show enough different views of the design to avoid any doubt about exactly what you want to register.

Repeated surface patterns

Views of designs with a repeated surface pattern should show the complete pattern and be surrounded with enough of the repeat to fully illustrate the entire pattern. Such designs should be indicated on page 2 of the application form by stating RSP in Box D.

Drawn views

These should be ink drawings or, better still, good-quality scans or photocopies. Only use cross-sectional (cut through) views if they are essential to show a feature properly. If you do include sectional views, they must not show any internal features which cannot normally be seen on the finished product.

Photographic views

These should show the product in front of a clear background and should not include any other items. Avoid confusing highlights, reflections and heavy shadows. Take care to prevent misleading distortion as a result of the camera being too close to the item.

Glue your photos firmly to white A4 backing sheets.

If you are having difficulty in representing your designs on paper, you may file a specimen of the new product design, providing it is no bigger than A4. If you do this your application will still be granted the original date of filing. A period of time will then be allowed to enable you to produce illustrations on paper.

Partial disclaimers

In some cases, you may want to protect the design that is applied to only part of a product or you may want to disclaim visual features such as colours or materials.