Japanese Intellectual Property, Patent and Trademark Law Firm in Japan

Related design system

1.Brief

Under Japan's Design Law, if a design is similar to a principal design, it can be registered as a related design.
A related design can be filed until the publication of the Design bullutein fo the principal design.
Each of the registered principal desgin and the related design has its own scope of right- the identical and similar scope.

More detail information is provided on page 5-6 of the following PDF.
http://www.jpaa.or.jp/english/design/pdf/DESIGN_PRACTICE.pdf

2.One appliction per design system

Because Japan's Desing Law adopts "One application per design system", a principal design and a related design have to be separately filed. They cannot be included in one application . 

Therfore, if the system in your country accepts inclusion of a plurarity of designs in one application, you have to separete them into applications.

3.On the same day? Later?

As mentioned above, a related design can be filed after the filing date of the principal design. Due to this, variations of a principl design can be filed later. This may be helpful if the design of goods is changed with slight model changes after the filing date of the principal design. 

However, you have to consider the risk that a related design will not enjoy the registration if a similar design to the related design become open to the public before the filing of the application for the related design.

Therefore, we recommend the application for a related design be filed on the filing day of the applcation for a principal design if the related design has been prepared. 
( Of course when the application claims priority, the priority date should be the same as the date of the other application. )


End of report

HIROTA, Miho
AIGI Intellectual Property Law Firm