Searching for European registered designs
In introducing his topic, the author points out the continuing worldwide sparsity of information on design registrations, especially in comparison with that available for patents. He then summarises the output of design registrations for the most active countries, both European and worldwide, with Germany and France leading in Europe, and Japan and China leading in the rest of the world. In most countries, domestic filings predominate. In listing the databases of European registered designs available on the Internet, information is provided on aspects such as coverage, whether images are provided and in what form, whether titles are searchable, and how hit-lists are sorted. Commercial databases are also mentioned. Status information is sometimes embedded in these databases, or provided as a separate database e.g. in the UK and in Spain. The Locarno classification is the key to searching for registered designs and is available in all these databases. Finally, the author points out that paper records are still important in this field, and lists the holdings of the British Library to illustrate what can be searched in this form.
locarno classification registered design databases design registration statistics european internet design databases design image availability official design gazettes