Guidance

Before Filing

Before filing your industrial design or model with the Intellectual Property Section, you must make sure that the following prerequisites are followed:

• your design or model constitutes an “industrial design or model’, it concerns the general external appearance of your product or its component and not e.g. its way of operation. For more information for the other types of intellectual right, you may refer to the page “Choosing the type of Intellectual Property right”,
• you have the ownership t to protect your industrial design or model.

In generall, the right to protect the design may belong to:

• the creator of the design or model;
• the employer of the creator when the design or model has been created during his employment;
• the person who ordered the project from the creator;
• any other person to whom the beneficiary of the design or model may have assigned in written their rights or to the heirs of such person.

The protection right may be owned by more than one person and in such case the application for registration is jointly filed.

• your design or model:
  • is new;
  • is unique;
  • does not contravene law or morality , or designs in relation to the way a product operates or component parts of a product which however are not visible during normal use of the product;
• the applicant for registration of industrial design or model is:
  • a natural person who is a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus or of another memberstate of the European Union or whose usual residence is in the Republic of Cyprus or the EU, or
  • a legal person having its actual industrial or commercial establishment in the Republic of Cyprus or another memberstate of the EU.
• you have not proceed in publishing the design (e.g. its publication or presentation to the public) for a period of more than 12 months prior to the filing date of the application or the priority day (where claimed);
• your design or model does not infringe third-party rights by searching on the web or in available industrial design databases .