Incoming Changes to Registered Community Designs
Many of the fees and rules relating to EU-wide registered designs will be changing on 1 May 2025. Their name will also be changing from the current “registered community designs” to “registered EU designs”. Many of the most significant changes are explained below.
Renewals
Currently, renewal fees for a registered design are due on the 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th anniversaries of its filing date, and the fees are payable at any time within the six calendar months leading up to and including the date of the relevant anniversary. For example, if a registered community design was filed on 15 January 2020, its first renewal date would have been 15 January 2025, and the fee would have been payable between 1 August 2024 and 31 January 2025 inclusive.
However, for any renewal date which falls after 1 May 2025, the fee will be payable at any time within the six months (not the six calendar months) leading up to and including the renewal date. Continuing with the above example, the second renewal date would be 15 January 2030, and the fee would therefore be payable between 16 July 2029 and 15 January 2030 inclusive, as opposed to between 1 August 2029 and 31 January 2030.
The renewal fees will also be significantly increasing from 1 May 2025, as shown in the below table.
| Anniversary | Current fee | New fee from 1 May 2025 |
| 5th | €90 per design | €150 per design |
| 10th | €120 per design | €250 per design |
| 15th | €150 per design | €400 per design |
| 20th | €180 per design | €700 per design |
The update to the renewal fees only comes into effect on 1 May 2025, meaning that, if you have a registered community design with a renewal date after 1 May 2025 but whose fee can be paid before 1 May 2025, you could pay the old fee to renew the design under the new system, avoiding a substantial fee increase. For example, if your registered design has a renewal date of 20 September 2025, the period for paying the fee would be from 21 March 2025 to 20 September 2025. If the request for renewal is made between 21 March 2025 and 30 April 2025, the old fees will apply, whereas if it is made between 1 May 2025 and 20 September 2025, the new fees will apply.
In view of the significant increases in fees, if you have a registered community design whose renewal date falls on or before 31 October 2025, it is strongly recommended to renew it before 1 May 2025.
Changes regarding registered design applications
Of the various changes to the rules regarding registered design applications, the most notable is that, from 1 May 2025, the designs included in a multiple application need no longer share the same Locarno class. Thus, designs in a multiple application filed after 1 May 2025 can be completely unrelated to each other. However, a limit of 50 designs in any one application will also be introduced on 1 May 2025.
Various fees are also changing on 1 May 2025. Most notably, the current registration and publication fees are being replaced by a single application fee, as detailed in the below table.
| Current fee | New fee from 1 May 2025 |
| Registration fee: €230 | Application fee: €350 |
| Publication fee: €120 | N/A |
| Additional registration fee for 2nd and further designs in a multiple application: €115 per design for each of the 2nd to 10th designs and €50 per design for the 11th design onwards. | Additional application fee for 2nd and further designs in a multiple application: €125 per design. |
| Additional publication fee for 2nd and further designs in a multiple application: €60 per design for each of the 2nd to 10th designs and €30 per design for the 11th design onwards. | N/A |
| Fee for deferment of publication: €40. | Fee for deferment of publication: €40. |
Due to the removal of the publication fee for second and further designs in a multiple application, filing multiple applications will be less expensive from 1 May 2025.
Other changes
Aside from fees, various substantive changes are being made to European design law. Some of the main changes are outlined below.
- From 1 May 2025, a circled D (similar to the circled C used to indicate copyright protection) can be marked on a product to inform the public that that product is protected by a registered EU design.
- Furthermore, from 1 May 2025 there will be an explicit legal provision in force which grants holders of a registered EU design the right to prohibit “the creation, downloading, copying and making available of any medium or software which records the design for the purpose of reproduction of a product that infringes the protected design”. What this means in practice is that action can be taken against someone who creates or distributes a file for 3D printing a product made to a protected design.
- In addition, from 1 May 2025, holders of a registered EU design can take infringement action against products which are made to the design even if they are merely being moved through the EU in the course of trade outside of the EU without being released for free circulation within the EU.
For more information on the upcoming legal and fee changes, or for advice on how best to respond to them, please do not hesitate to contact any of the attorneys at Dolleymores.