The Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Rights to Industrial Designs” as amended on May 22, 2003 is the principal legislative act in Ukraine with respect to industrial designs.
Referred to as an industrial design is the result of a creative activity of a man in the field of artistic designing.
The object of an industrial design may be the shape, picture, or coloration, or their combination, which define the appearance of an industrial product. Under the above Law, the following may not be recognized as industrial designs and obtain protection:
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Objects of architecture (except small architectural forms), industrial, hydrotechnical, and other stationary structures;
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Printed products per se; and
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Objects of an unstable form of liquid, gaseous, free-flowing, or like substances.
An industrial design is patentable if it is novel. After a while, however, under the above Law as amended, industrial designs will also have to meet the originality requirement.
The right, title and interest in and to an industrial design are certified by a patent. The term of validity of a patent for an industrial design is 10 years and may be extended at the request of the patent holder but for not more than five years.
It should be pointed out that a design patent protects only an appearance of an object (e.g., the design of an electric coffee-maker, a beer bottle shape, a tractor appearance). An internal construction of a product, the principle of interaction of its individual parts and components will not be protected by a design patent; to protect them, you should obtain a patent for an invention or utility model.
While the above Law does not provide the grant of a design patent with respect of printed products, Ukrpatent allows the grant of patents for advertising postcards, stickers, labels, and other like products. It should be noted, however, that, in such a case, a text which may be applied to these products does not fall under protection of the patent. That is to say, where a label protected by a patent contains an inscription "Obolon", this does not mean that nobody else is entitled to use the word "Obolon" in its/their labels. In order to obtain protection for any verbal element, you should register it as a trademark.
In order to obtain a Ukrainian design patent, you should apply for the grant of such patent by filing an application with the Ukraine’s patent office (Ukrpatent). Such application is a package of properly executed documents. In order to obtain a patent in any other country, you should file your application with the patent office of such country or file an international application or PCT application with a suitable patent office, called a Receiving Office. The design patent application package must include a set of product images such as photos, pictures and its description setting forth its dominant or essential features. The photos must display all of the dominant or essential features of the industrial design, that’s why the image in such photos must be especially clear without any defects, unnecessary shadows or highlights. Just for these reasons, we do not recommend using amateur photographic apparatuses to produce images for your application (this is especially true in the event of small-size products).
After receiving a design patent application, Ukrpatent performs an examination as to form during which the date of filing the application is established and the compliance whereof with the requirements as to form is verified.
In the event that the examiner is satisfied, the applicant is granted a design patent. For each operation (for example, for filing the application, amendments incorporated with the application, an extension of time for reply, etc.), the applicant should pay the prescribed fee to Ukrpatent. For basic fees, please refer to the table below.
Because patent offices’ requirements for the preparation and execution of documents of a design patent application are rather strict, failure to comply with them may result in a long-lasting correspondence between the applicant and the patent office (this especially is the case in the event of overseas patent offices); the necessity to correct some or other errors in application materials; increase in periods of time of the examination of the application; and, as a result, the necessity to pay additional fees. When filing an application with the patent office of a foreign country, any errors during the preparation of the application are fraught later on with large financial costs. Furthermore, any errors and inaccuracies increase many times the risk of the rejection of your application.
The patent attorneys and experts of Patent Law Company INVENTA will take upon themselves the preparation and execution of all of the requisite documents of an application, carry out a search to discover the prior relevant art (if any) contained in the application, prepare a competent answer to a request of a patent office’s examiner, provide any advice or consultation concerning your application, help you to save both time and money as well as to reduce substantially the risk of the rejection of your application. Inventa’s experts warrant the nondisclosure of our customers’ application materials to any third parties.
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When filing a design patent application, you should submit the following documents:
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9 cm x 13 cm, 13 cm x 18 cm or 18 cm x 24 cm photos of general view (3 copies) or their quality A4 or A5 size xerocopies;
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Photos or their quality xerocopies of each of the other views, namely, a side view, a bottom view, a top view, a back view, a front view (3 copies of each view);
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A drawing or a diagram of the industrial design (generally required for products of a complicated construction with a large number of parts and components);
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A brief description of the industrial design;
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The full name of the applicant in the Ukrainian language (company’s name and legal address or individual’s name and place of residence);
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A certified copy of a priority document (only for an application claiming priority under the Paris Convention);
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The particulars of an inventor(s) in the Ukrainian language (name(s) and place(s) of residence);
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Power of attorney granted to the patent attorneys to represent the interests of the applicant before the respective establishments and organizations; and
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Service agreement by and between the applicant and our Company.
* Where the applicant(s) or holder(s) of the respective patent is (are) the inventor(s) of the design patent, each fee is paid at a rate of 5 percent of the prescribed fee.