Symposium on Industrial Design in Europe

Identify, analyse and harmonize criteria

The working symposium 'Industrial Design in Europe: Debate Symposium' was held past March 14th at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) with the goal of identifying, analysing and harmonizing the protection criteria on the field of Industrial Designs in the European Union as a starting point to begin a reform of their legislation.

This initiative responds to the public consultation launched by the European Commission in order to gather the data and opinions of the interested parties regarding the Directive 98/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, of October 13th 1998, on the legal protection of designs ('Directive on designs') and the Council Regulation (EC) No. 6/2002, of December 12th 2001, on Community designs ('Regulation on Community designs') that are being assessed. This should help the Commission to decide if these legislative acts work as planned and can still be considered suitable for their purposes.

The symposium was attended by the main actors involved in the task of creating a new legal framework which guarantees a better protection, updated and harmonized with the present and future technological and regulatory challenges.