Recently, CNIPA issued the Guidelines on Application for International Registration of Designs (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines) to guide innovators to use the Hague System efficiently and reasonably to carry out global product layout and to improve design innovation capability. According to statistics, as of October 2023, the Hague Agreement has a total of 79 contracting parties, covering 96 countries/regions.
The Guidelines provide a simpler and more efficient international registration process, which means that under the Hague system, applicants only need to use one language, submit one international application, pay with one currency, and obtain at least 15 years of design protection in more than 90 countries/regions through one institution (The International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization).
In addition, the applicant must meet one of the following conditions: nationals of the contracting party's country or member states of the contracting party's intergovernmental organization; a natural or legal person who has a true and valid commercial or industrial establishment or residence in the contracting party to the Hague Agreement; natural or legal persons with habitual residence in the territory of the contracting party (as stipulated in the 1999 text).
The application for international registration of a design needs to be published after registration with the International Bureau, and the time for publication is chosen by the applicant. This falls within the following three situations:
1. immediate publication right after international registration;
2. standard publication with the date of 12 months after the international registration date as the default publication time; and
3. selected publication, with the publication time dated less than 12 months after registration, or greater than 12 months as selected according to the prompts in the application form (DM/1), with a maximum period of 30 months.
The application for international registration of design requires three types of fees: basic fee, publication fee, and designated fee. The designated fee is a fee for each designated contracting party, and the Hague system also allows eligible countries to declare using a separate designated fee.
