UK accession to the Hague agreement
We are seeking views on the UK’s accession to the Geneva Act of the Hague agreement for the international registration of industrial designs.
The Hague system is an international designs registration system that gives much more flexibility to the designer and reduces some of the costs associated with international design registrations for business.
Under the powers given by the IP Act 2014, the UK will be able to join the Hague system, making it possible for UK designers to register their designs in the UK and abroad in a single application. This means that it will be possible to register designs across as many or as few member nations as you like with just one application and one fee. The system can significantly reduce costs for businesses by reducing the need for multiple translations and legal representation as well as currency exchange costs.
We welcome your views and experiences of using the international registration system for protecting designs.
We have also provided draft text for the proposed secondary legislation to allow the UK accession to the agreement.
We are particularly interested in opinions on the specific issues highlighted in the consultation document, but please feel free to offer case studies or comment more generally, including on the drafting of the proposed instrument.