- Chapter I General Provisions
- Article 1. Scope of Regulation
- Article 2. Definition of the Terms
- Article 3. Design and its Protection Criteria
- Article 4. Scope of Protection
- Article 5. Origination of the Exclusive Right on Design and the Term of its Validity
- Article 6. Disclosure
- Article 7. Design dictated only by a Technical Function and Designs of interconnections
- Article 8. Relationship between the Co-designers
- Article 9. Right to Register a Design
- Article 10. Grounds for Non-Registrability
- Chapter II Filing of the Application on the Design, Expertise and Registration
- Article 11. Application
- Article 12. Multiple Applications, Unification and Separation of the Application
- Article 13. Priority
- Article 14. Examination of Design Application
- Article 15. Establishing the Date of Filing Application
- Article 16. Examination of the Formal Requirements
- Article 17. Substantive Examination
- Article 18. Extension and Restoration of the Procedural Timeframes
- Article 19. Publication of the Design
- Article 20. Grounds of the Complaint in the Chamber of Appeal
- Article 21. Design Registration
- Article 22. Compact Procedure of the Design Registration
- Article 23. Service Fee
- Chapter III International Design
- Chapter IV Exclusive Rights on Design
- Article 26. Scope of the Exclusive Rights on Design
- Article 27. Right of Prior Use
- Article 28. Revocation of Design Registration
- Article 29. Declaration of Invalidity of the Design
- Article 30. Responsibility for Violation of Exclusive Rights on Design
- Article 31. Assignment of Rights to Design
- Article 32. Private License on Use of Design
- Article 33. Conflict of Interests
- Chapter V Transitional Provisions
- Chapter VI Final Provisions
LAW OF GEORGIA ON DESIGN
Chapter I
General Provisions
Article 1. Scope of Regulation
1. According to the Constitution of Georgia this Law recognizes the property right of the object of intellectual property – the design. Regulates relations concerned with creation, registration, use, legal protection of the design and implementation of the deriving rights.
2. Application of this Law extends to the design if it is registered by Sakpatenti in the register of the industrial property (hereafter – the Registry) according to the rule established by the law.
3. Design, which is not registered and/or to which international registration does not apply is subject to protection under the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights.
Article 2. Definition of the Terms
1. Terms used in the law have following meanings:
a) Sakpatenti – legal entity of public law defined by the Georgian Patent law – the National Intellectual Property Center of Georgia;
b) International Bureau – international bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization;
c) Paris Convention – Paris Convention for Protection of Industrial Property of March 20, 1883 (revised at Stockholm in July 14, 1967, amended on September 28, 1979);
d) Designer – a natural person who created a design as a result of intellectual creative work.
e) Co-designer - a natural person who created a design as a result of intellectual creative work in cooperation with other natural person (s).
f) Design holder– a person who has an exclusive right over the design and who is entered as a design holder in the register by Sakpatenti;
g) Certificate – a document issued according to this Law in the name of the design holder, which conforms the fact of registration of the design for the moment of its issuance;
h) Applicant – a natural or legal person who requests registration of the design;
i) Application – unity of the documents necessary for the design registration according to this Law;
j) Hague Agreement – Hague Act of November 28, 1960 and/or Geneva Act of July 2, 1999 of the Hague Agreement on International Registration of the Design;
k) International Design – a design registered by the International Bureau with the requirement of application of the rights on the Georgian territory according to the Hague Agreement;
l) International Classification of Designs – international classification established by the Locarno Agreement on International Classification of Designs signed on October 8, 1968;
m) Priority – a priority enjoyed by an application over the applications filed later;
n) Convention Priority – priority established under Article 4 of the Paris Convention which can be applied by the applicant in the Paris Convention or other WTO member state;
o) Exhibition Priority – priority established under Article 11 of the Paris Convention which can be applied by the applicant in the Paris Convention or other WTO member state;
p) Chamber of Appeal – Chamber of Appeal established at Sakpatenti defined by the Patent law of Georgia.
Article 3. Design and its Protection Criteria
1. A design is the appearance of the whole product or its part resulting from the, features of, in particular, lines, contours, colors, shape, texture and/or material of the product, and/or its decoration.
2. Product is any industrial or handicraft item, including inter alia parts, packaging, get-up, graphical symbols and typographical fonts, excluding computer programs intended to be assembled into a complex product.
3. Complex product means a product which is composed of more than one component and these components may be replaced by disassembling and re-assembling the product.
4. Legal protection shall be granted to a design if it is new and has individual character.
5. A design is novel if no identical design has been made available to the public before the date of filing an application or the date of priority.
6. In determination of the novelty of the design, a design filed in Sakpatenti or registered in International Bureau with the requirement of application of the rights on the Georgian territory shall be considered publicly available if it was published after filing application for the design for which novelty is being established, but has earlier priority.
7. Designs shall be deemed to be identical even if their features differ only by insignificant details.
8. A design is of individual character if the overall impression it produces on the informed user differs from the overall impression produced on the same user by any other design which has been made available to the public before the date of filing an application or the priority date.
9. In assessing individual character, the degree of freedom of designer in creation of the design shall be considered.
10. A design applied to or incorporated in a product which is a component part of a complex product shall be considered as new and having individual character if it is visible within the complex product in the course of its normal use while the visible parts meet the criteria of novelty and individual nature.
11. For the purposes of this Article "normal use” means use by the end user, except for the technical maintenance, repair works.
Article 4. Scope of Protection
1. Scope of legal protection of the design shall be determined by its appearance.
2. Scope of legal protection shall not extend on word or words interpolated in the design.
3. Scope of legal protection of the design shall include any design which does not produce on the informed user a different overall impression.
4. In determining the scope of legal protection of the design the degree of designer’s freedom shall be considered.
Article 5. Origination of the Exclusive Right on Design and the Term of its Validity
1. Exclusive rights on design originate in case of registration in Sakpatenti from the date of filing application, also according to this Law through extension of the international registration, based on the Hague Convention.
2. A certificate is issued over the design registered in Sakpatenti.
3. Applicant is authorized to register a design in Sakpatenti for one or more periods of five years, but not more than for 25 from the date of filing application in Sakpatenti.
Article 6. Disclosure
1. A design shall be deemed to have been made available to the public, if it has been published, exhibited, used in trade or otherwise disclosed before the date of the application filing or the priority date.
2. A design shall not be deemed to have been disclosed to the public regardless of the referred in the first paragraph, if:
a) the actions, referred in the first paragraph of this Article, in normal course of events could not have become known to the persons operating in the respective field in Georgia.
b) information on design has been disclosed to the third person, under direct or indirect conditions of confidentiality.
3. The disclosure of a design to the public shall not be considered as the ground for refusal to register a design, if it has become available to the public within a time period of 12 months preceding the date of filing application or priority date:
a) by way of disclosing information on design by the designer or his/her successor, or
b) as a result of an abuse conducted by the third person in relation to the designer or his/her successor.
Article 7. Design dictated only by a Technical Function and Designs of interconnections
1. Protection does not extend to those elements of the design:
a) which are solely dictated by their technical function;
b) which should be necessarily presented in the design exactly in such form and dimensions that the product into which the design is incorporated, or for which it is applied, has ability to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or on the opposite side of another product so that each product can perform its own function.
2. Sub-paragraph "b” of paragraph 1 of this Article does not extend to the design which serves the purpose of allowing multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system.
Article 8. Relationship between the Co-designers
Relationship between the co-designers is defined by the agreement concluded among them. In case of absence of the agreement each of them enjoys equal joint right.
Article 9. Right to Register a Design
1. Right to file the application shall vest in the designer or her/his successor in title, except for the cases referred by this Article.
2. Right to file the application for the design developed jointly by several designers shall vest in all designers jointly as well as in each of them in case of consent of other designers, unless otherwise provided by the agreement among the designers.
3. Where a design is developed by an employee or the order receiver in the execution of his duties or implementation of the order, right to file the application for the design shall vest in the employer/order issuer, unless it is otherwise provided by the agreement.
4. Where development of a design is not related to the execution of the duties or implementation of the order, however the resources of the employer or the order issuer have been used, right to register a design shall be vested in the employer/order issuer.
5. In case envisaged by paragraph 4 of this Article preemptive rights to receive free of charge non-exclusive private license on such design and/or to purchase exclusive rights deriving from such design belong to the employer/order issuer, unless otherwise provided by the agreement.
6. If one and the same design is created independently by two or more persons, exclusive right to design belongs to the applicant whose application has an earlier priority.
7. If several applications concerning identical designs have been established to have the same priority, right to design registration belongs to the person(s) indicated in the agreement of the applicants. If parties fail to agree, dispute shall be resolved by the court.
Article 10. Grounds for Non-Registrability
The design shall not be registered if:
a) it does not comply with the requirements envisaged by first paragraph of Article 3 of this Law.
b) it is identical to the earlier design, which is filed in Sakpatenti or registered in the International Bureau with the requirement to extend protection on the Georgian territory and it became disclosed prior to filing the application or the date of requiring priority;
c) it is identical to the earlier design, which became available to the public after the application filing or the date of requiring priority, but is filed in Sakpatenti or registered in the International Bureau with the requirement to extend protection on the Georgian territory before the abovementioned date.
d) the registration contradicts with the public order.
e) wholly or by any consisting element coincides with the state herald, flag, money sign, full or abbreviated name of Georgia or its territorial entity or the foreign country and no consent of a competent body is available.
f) wholly or by any composing element coincides with the herald, flag, full or abbreviated name of an international organization and this coincidence is evident to the expert and if no consent of this organization is available.
g) design or its composing element displays an appellation of the place of product origin or geographic indication which has been granted protection on the Georgian territory based on the local registration, bilateral or international agreement.
Chapter II
Filing of the Application on the Design, Expertise and Registration
Article 11. Application
1. Application for design registration is filed in Sakpatenti by persons or through their representatives.
2. If the applicant is a designer’s successor in title, the application should be presented in Sakpatenti with the document verifying the succession within one month from the date of the application filing.
3. If the application was filed by a designer’s representative, the application should be appended with the document confirming representation.
4. Application shall contain:
a) application on registration of the design (further the application);
b) a presentation (view) of the design.
4. Application may contain description which has explanatory nature only.
5. Filing of the application in Sakpatenti takes place by way of actual submission of the application or by other way.
6. Application is considered to be filed in Sakpatenti from the moment of filing of the application and the view of design.
7. Form of the application and rule of filing is determined by the instruction on design registration (further the Instruction).
Article 12. Multiple Applications, Unification and Separation of the Application