The applicant must ensure that the design that he wants to protect, respects the registration conditions (novelty criterion and individual character, no previous filing of an identical design by someone else, no prior disclosure, and the design is not excluded from protection), and that he is authorised to hold the rights to it.
The registration authorities do not have the competence to check if the designs are valid. They only verify whether the design is not contrary to public order and good moral standards.
It is, therefore, the responsibility of the applicant to check himself whether the conditions are fulfilled, at the risk of seeing his application cancelled a posteriori. It may be useful to carry out a search in the design registers.
Depending on the number of designs, the applicant will file a single application (for a single design) or a multiple application (for a maximum of 50 designs, provided that they belong to the same product class). If the applicant files a multiple application, he only has to complete one formality and the fees are lower than they would have been for several single applications. The products in which the designs are incorporated are the subject of an international classification system, called the "Locarno classification".
The applicant can also file a community or international application in order to obtain protection outside the Benelux.
