Registered Designs Act 2000 · 2020 Revised Edition · Part 2 · Registration of Designs
4. Owner of design
Feedback & supportLast amended by an amending law of 2017.
Subject to this section, the designer of a design is to be treated for the purposes of this Act as the owner of the design.
designer
“designer”, in relation to a design, means the person who creates it or, if there are 2 or more such persons, each of those persons;
Where a design is created by an employee in the course of his or her employment, his or her employer is to be treated as the owner of the design.
design
“design” means features of shape, configuration, colours, pattern or ornament applied to any article or non‑physical product that give that article or non‑physical product its appearance, but does not include —(a)a method or principle of construction;(b)features of shape, configuration or colours of an article or a non‑physical product that —(i)are dictated solely by the function that the article or non‑physical product has to perform;(ii)are dependent upon the appearance of another article or non‑physical product of which the article or non‑physical product is intended by the designer to form an integral part; or(iii)enable the article or non‑physical product to be connected to, or placed in, around or against, another article or non‑physical product, so that either article or non‑physical product may perform its function; or(c)features consisting only of one or more colours that —(i)are not used with any feature of shape or configuration; and(ii)do not give rise to any feature of pattern or ornament;
Subsection (2) is subject to any agreement to the contrary between the parties concerned.
Where a design, or the right to apply a design to any article or non‑physical product, becomes vested, whether by assignment, transmission or operation of law, in any person other than the owner, either alone or jointly with the owner, that other person or (as the case may be) the owner and that other person, is to be treated for the purposes of this Act as the owner of the design or as the owner of the design in relation to that article or non‑physical product.
article
“article” means any thing that is manufactured (whether by an industrial process, by hand or otherwise), and includes —(a)any part of an article, if that part is made and sold separately; and(b)any set of articles;
In the case of a design generated by computer in circumstances such that there is no human designer, the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the design are made is deemed to be the designer.