Think about how we buy products these days. If you’re anything like me, your buying habits will have become increasingly ‘visual’. I will search online for something I want to buy, and the overwhelming choice available these days means that I often have to rely on visual recognition of the product I want to buy. BUT our memories are imperfect, and we can, as a result, be ‘fooled’ into buying a different product to the one we wanted originally because the two products look so similar on a page showing multiple products, that our imperfect recollection can lead to us making an honest mistake. And if the other product is cheaper…well, that’s likely to be the choice I make.
So, the visual aspects of products, including logos, their outward appearance and (sometimes) even their packaging are all designs that help guide consumer choice, and can, potentially, be registered if they are distinctive. Design registration can help you to protect yourself against unscrupulous ‘copycats’ that rely on consumers’ imperfect recollection to eat into your market share.
The benefits of registered designs include:
1. A legal right to take action against a third party that makes/sells something that looks confusingly similar.
2. The ability to use the “take down” function on platforms such as Amazon and Shopify
3. Increased value/investability of your business
4. The ability to use a customs registration process to help stop consignments of infringing products before they enter your market.