Illustrations of your design

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

If your design is not two-dimensional or is just decoration, your illustrations should include a series of views of the product to which the design is applied.

If you only want to protect the design of part of a product, you should mark your illustrations clearly or include a partial disclaimer.

If you need to explain any design features, which cannot be clearly seen in your illustrations, you can include a brief description of the design or the feature on page 2 of your application form.

Views of the design

Your illustrations should show enough different views of the design so that there is no 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.

Drawn views

These should be ink drawings or, better still, good-quality 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 A4 backing sheets.

If you are having difficulty in representing your designs on paper, you may file a specimen of the new product design and still be granted the original date of filing. A period of time will then be allowed to enable you to produce illustrations on paper with help from an examiner should you need it. Similarly, you may file informal illustrations to avoid delaying your application date, and we will allow you time to put the paper illustrations in order for publication. The formal illustration must show the same design features as those shown in the informal illustrations.

Informal illustrations

To avoid delaying your application, you can send us an informal illustration or sample of the product.

Partial disclaimer

In some cases, you may want to protect the design that is applied to only part of a product.