Design right is very similar to Copyright, only it covers three-dimensional objects. The drawback is that it is only of any great use in the UK... So UK business people, innovators and anybody interested in inventing read on!

If you want to own and protect a three-dimensional object Worldwide, Patents are the best option... if you can get one!

Design rights can also co-exist with Registered Design Rights - see this page. Please use this link for more info!

Specifically the UK Design Right covers objects whose shape is original and important to the work (or product) and which have been made for industrial purposes.

It protects the internal and/or external shape or configuration of a design.

The main point is that to have a UK design right granted, the object in question does not have to have aesthetic appeal. Design right does not, however, protect how the object is composed or fabricated, or any special processes used to manufacture or assemble it.

There are also some important exclusions as to what qualifies as having design rights. These include designs whose shape is dictated by another object of which they are part or connected to. In other words, a design will attract no design rights if its shape is the result of it having to 'match' or 'fit' another design or object.

Design rights are usually automatically granted to the originator (designer, author, creator or inventor) of the design. A design right should cover you for fifteen years after the end of the first year in which the object was expressed in a suitable and permanent media (e.g. as a drawing, working model or prototype, a computer file or a photograph etc). If the object has been exploited commercially it will only be protected for ten years after the date that first happened.

A design right gives its holder, mainly in the UK, the exclusive right to exploit the design for profit or commercial purposes.