Industrial design protection in Bulgaria. Industrial design attorney in Bulgaria.

"IUSAUTHOR" operates on registration of national industrial design in the Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria in Sofia and legal protection in court where a conflict of interest on design. What are the designs and what legal options they provide?

Design is the appearance of a product or part of the specific features of the form, the lines, contours, ornamentation, color or combination of them. Product is any product produced by industrial or handicraft, including parts intended to be assembled into a complex article, sets or compositions of articles, packaging, graphic symbols and typographic typefaces.

Exclusive right to design shall be acquired by registration with the Patent Office. Registered design which is new and original. 

Not registered designs:

-contrary to public order or morality,

-whose characteristics are determined by the technical function of the product,

-whose characteristics are determined by the need for the product to which it is attached or which included the design to be mechanically assembled or put in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its functions.

The extent of legal protection is determined by the images of the registered design.

The duration of the design registration is ten years from the date of filing and may be renewed for three successive periods of five years.

The registration of the design has territoriality.

National registration.

A design right is acquired through registration with the Patent Office in Sofia. The duration of the design registration is 10 years from the date of filing. Right belongs to the author or his successor. The date of filing shall be the date of receipt by the Patent Office:

- Request for registration containing the name and address of the applicant

- Name and address of the author

- The number of designs, an indication of the products in which it is incorporated or to which it is applied, classification of the products in the International Classification of Designs under the Locarno Agreement;

- One or more graphic or photographic representations of the design.

Multiple application

It is a request to include several designs if: the products in which they are incorporated or to which are attached designs in the same class of the International Classification of models and drawings under the Locarno Agreement or belong to the same set or izdeliya.Kogato composition of the products in which they are incorporated or to which are attached designs are ornaments, this condition does not apply.

Publication of the application.

Each design application that meets the formal requirements is published in the official bulletin of the Patent Office. Hosted is two months from the date of publication of objections from third parties, then performed the examination on the merits of the proposed design.

Changes in the application.

Allowed only change in the name or address of the applicant. It is possible to correct errors in the name or address of the applicant and obvious errors. These amendments should not affect the design.

Requirements.

Images of the design or the products in which it is incorporated or to which it is applied must submit in a principal view and in many additional views as necessary to clear the full and detailed disclosure of the design, which has been applied protection. Products must be presented in a position in which they are usually used.

Registered design right includes:

The right of the holder to use the design to dispose of it and to prohibit third parties without his consent to copy or use in trade design included within the scope of protection. Using design includes production, supply and placing on the market or use of a product in which it is incorporated or to which it is applied within the scope of protection, as well as import, export and storage of the product for those purposes. The right is effective against third parties as of the date of publication of the registration of the design. 

“IUSAUTHOR” offers also registration of Community design(RCD) in the European Union Intellectual property office(EUIPO), Alicante, Spain.

Novelty and originality of the industrial design. Practical problems and solutions.

Following recent amendments to the Law on Industrial Designs ( ZPrD ) , entered into force on 12 February 2011. , The Patent Office has not made ex officio examination of absolute grounds regarding how a declared design meets the mandatory requirements of the novelty and referred down in Article 12 and Article 13 of ZPrD . In the previous edition of the Design Act and its previous Article 37 (from SG 81 of 14 September 1999 . To Am . - SG . 73 of 2006 , effective 06.10.2006 , amended . - SG . 35 of 2010 , in force from 12.02.2011 ) was expressly provided that the substantive examination should verify all applied for and the earlier identical designs on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria, and globally in order to give an opinion on the case of Article 3, Article 11, Paragraph 2, Article 12 and Article 12 , paragraph 2 of ZPrD . If in this context, the expert discovered grounds for refusal of registration of the design, or part thereof , the applicant shall be informed of the reasons for the Patent Office and shall be provided a three month period for objection. After Discussed changes from 2011. in ZPrD of expertise is essentially passed to the registration system of the design applied by national order. This new legislation was enforced mainly due to the need for harmonization of national legislation with the system of registration of Community designs pursuant to Regulation № 6 /2002 EC .

Three-dimensional trademark or industrial design?

The theory and practice of patent law overlap with the view that the doctrinal and factual three-dimensional mark and design actually achieve the same legal result - the defense of the image of an object. However, the differences in the legal effects of the registration of the two objects of intellectual property are significant and should be explored in depth, with the idea to properly structure a strategic decision, on the most adequate means of defense for dealing with in a particular case. From this point of view, I find this topic particularly interesting because it is the basis for solving legal issues of a theoretical and practical nature that concern the correct registration of a product's vision, depending on several important criteria: 

- how much it has been used and has become commercially recognizable prior to the date of its filing as an industrial property;

 - how many images should the protection cover;

 - target time as the speed of the registration;

 - what is the duration of registration required by the applicant; 

- should the pre-selected remedy be in line with any possible future legal disputes that would have been sorted out when there is an improperly chosen intellectual property subject to the application or registration.