An industrial design is understood as the solution for the appearance of a product of industrial or handicraft production (Clause 1, Article 1352 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
An industrial design is an object of patent rights, the essential features of which include characteristics that determine the aesthetic and/or ergonomic aspects of the product’s appearance, such as shape, configuration, ornamentation, and color combination.
According to current legislation, two conditions of patentability for an industrial design are established:
- Novelty: the combination of essential features of the industrial design must not be known from information that became publicly available worldwide before the priority date of the design.
- Originality: the essential features of the design must give the product a creative character.
Legal protection is not granted as an industrial design to:
- solutions dictated exclusively by the technical function of the product;
- architectural objects (except for small architectural forms), industrial, hydraulic and other stationary constructions;
- objects of unstable form made from liquid, gaseous, bulk or similar substances.
The exclusive right to an industrial design is recognized and protected only upon its state registration, based on which the federal executive authority for intellectual property issues a patent for the industrial design.
The term of the exclusive right to an industrial design is five years and may be extended for additional periods of five years each as requested in the application, but not more than four times (maximum total term: 25 years).