Your design can be registered to protect the appearance of all or part of your product. It can also protect the shape of a product and/or its ornamentation and this includes the packaging itself too.
To achieve this, the design must be new and different from existing designs and can only be registered if it has been public for less than one year before the design application is filed. In an ideal world, however, designs should be registered before you make them public, particularly if you want to protect them outside the European Union. Any design which is in the marketplace and not protected is asking for trouble.
As already mentioned, some products or services can be protected under different areas of Intellectual Property. In this instance some trademarks can also be registered as designs, which can be useful because trademark registration is limited to particular goods or services, whereas design registration has a much wider scope. UK design registrations can last for twenty-five years, and you should seek early professional advice to ensure you are fully covered.