MARQUES has been involved in the debate on the reform of the European Union Design legislation since its inception, following the publication of the Legal Review on Industrial Designs Protection in Europe in 2016.

In the interest of designers and design right holders, MARQUES has advocated that the overall goals of the recast EU design law should be directed toward advancing a streamlined system of design protection at national, regional – in the European Union – and international levels.

MARQUES believes that design applicants should have full choice in that regard. A sound design protection system within Europe should be aimed at facilitating design owners in making their choice, by offering simplified and efficient procedures for design protection in a harmonised legal environment, which can ensure complementarity with the national design systems.

For these reasons, MARQUES welcomed the adoption by the European Commission of the two package proposals to modernise the legislation on design protection at the end of November last year. A summary of the draft legislative texts can be found in the December 2022 edition of HouseMARQUES here.

Working together with ECTA and INTA

As the Commission launched a public consultation on the draft legislative texts of the revised Design Law Directive and Regulation, MARQUES and the sister organisations ECTA and INTA have furthered their cooperation.

The advocacy efforts of the three organisations have proven impactful and efficient in the previous steps of the reform process. ECTA, INTA and MARQUES are the signatories of a further joint contribution that the three organisations submitted during the consultation of the European Commission on 31 January 2023: it can be downloaded from the MARQUES website here.

This input builds upon the recommendations provided to the Commission by the three organisations individually as well as jointly over the past years, in particular, through the Joint Paper on Legal Review of EU Designs System, submitted in July 2018, and the Joint Comments on the European Commission’s Inception Impact Assessment on the review of the Design Directive and Community Design Regulation submitted in January 2021. Both these documents are available on the Position Papers page on the MARQUES website.

New points raised

In this round of consultations, MARQUES, ECTA and INTA welcomed the efforts of the European Commission in attempting to achieve greater harmonisation in the area of industrial designs and taking on board some of the proposals and recommendations presented in the above-mentioned earlier joint statements.

A few other specific areas/points were identified when studying the draft documents (Directive, Regulation and Implementing Regulation) and have been addressed in this new joint paper to the Commission for due consideration.

The MARQUES Designs Team will share more information about the EU design law reform as it further develops. There will also be an episode of the Talking MARQUES podcast focusing on this topic available next month.