My furniture design is ten years old and was never registered. Is it still protected?

For design law it is too late. If you show a design yourself, you have twelve months to still file it (Article 3.3(4) of the Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property). The unregistered EU design protects for three years from the day the design was first made public within the EU (Article 11(1) of the EU Design Regulation). Copyright, however, may still apply. It arises without any filing and runs until seventy years after the year in which the designer dies (Article 37 of the Dutch Copyright Act). Since the Mio/konektra judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 4 December 2025, the same test applies to a piece of furniture as to other works, namely whether its shape shows free and creative choices by the designer. Slavish imitation can also help, if after ten years the piece still has its own distinctive identity on the market and hasn’t disappeared among similar products.

Someone is selling a 3D printing file of my design online. Can I do anything about it?

With a registered EU design, yes. Since the 2025 reform of EU design law, the holder can also prohibit anyone from creating, downloading, copying or sharing a file or software in order to make the product (Article 19(2)(d) of the EU Design Regulation). With an unregistered EU design that is only possible if the file goes back to a copy of your design (Article 19(4)). The Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property doesn’t mention such files in so many words. With a Benelux design it therefore depends on whether the court regards offering the file as use of the product (Article 3.16(2) BCIP). If your design is protected by copyright, the file can be a reproduction, because the Dutch Copyright Act also counts an imitation in a modified form as one (Article 13 of the Dutch Copyright Act).

Protecting a product design

A new product is often the result of months of sketches, prototypes and talks with the factory. If you want to protect that product design, you can rely on copyright, design law and the Dutch rules on slavish imitation. They differ in what you have to do to get the right and in what you can stop with it later. Since a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union at the end of 2025, it is settled that a design product doesn’t have to clear a higher bar anywhere in the EU than a painting or a novel. At Liaise we work out with design labels and manufacturers which right their design relies on and what they need to record themselves.

Launching a new product or have you already spotted a copy of your design? Call 020 675 88 21 or get in touch. Response within one working day.

Copyright in designer furniture or a lamp after Mio/konektra

Since the Mio/konektra judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 4 December 2025, a piece of furniture, a lamp or another object of everyday use is protected by copyright if its shape shows free and creative choices by the designer that are not dictated by its function or by technical constraints, with no stricter requirements than for other works.

The case concerned dining tables from the Palais Royal series by the Swedish furniture brand Asplund and the USM Haller modular storage system. The Swedish and German courts asked whether a higher bar applies to such objects of everyday use than to other works. The Court said no (Mio/konektra, para. 57). In the Netherlands, the Dutch Copyright Act expressly names works of applied art and industrial designs and models as protected works (Article 10(1)(11), in Dutch).

The Court looks at the object itself. The court must identify the creative choices in the shape and may not assume that every choice not forced by technique is also creative (para. 65). Choices driven by ergonomics, safety or the standards of the industry don’t count (para. 62). Your intentions, your sources of inspiration and a place in a museum or design collection may be taken into account, but according to the Court they are never necessary or decisive (para. 82).

Your design process therefore only counts in so far as it is visible in the product itself (para. 75). Even so, dated sketches and interim versions help, because they show which choices are yours and since when.

For infringement, the Court asks whether creative elements of your design have been reproduced in a recognisable way. For copyright it makes no difference whether the two products produce the same overall impression. The degree of originality of your design doesn’t matter either (para. 92). A component can also be protected, such as an armrest or a base, if that is exactly where the originality of the whole lies (para. 66). If a competitor follows the same trend or the same older model as you, there is only infringement if they take your own new elements (para. 90).

Copyright arises without any filing and runs until seventy years after the year in which the designer dies. More on assignment and licences is on the copyright page.

When function dictates the shape of a product

With an object of everyday use, much of the shape is fixed. A chair has to bear a weight, a lamp has to spread light and a cabinet has to fit a standard size.

Design law does not protect features of appearance that are dictated solely by technical function (Article 3.2(1)(a) BCIP, in Dutch, Article 8(1) of the EU Design Regulation). The same goes for connecting parts that must have exactly that shape to fit another product. For a modular system the law makes an exception. With a storage system or a wall rack, the connections that let you link interchangeable elements together again and again can also be protected as a design (Article 3.2(2) BCIP, Article 8(3) of the EU Design Regulation).

In copyright, choices forced by technique don’t count. Even so, a product that is partly dictated by technique can be protected, as long as the technique left the designer room for choices of their own (Mio/konektra, para. 63). And with slavish imitation, a competitor doesn’t have to change anything about their own product if doing so would come at the expense of its soundness or usefulness.

With a design that has many functional parts, the protection therefore lies in the details you were free to choose. Name those details in your filing and in your own records.

Filing variants and parts of a product as a design

A design right only arises with a filing, as a Benelux design with the BOIP or as an EU design with the EUIPO. The procedure, the fees and the twelve-month grace period are explained on the design law page.

A design label rarely launches a product in a single version. A lamp comes in three colours, a chair with and without armrests. In one multiple filing you can include up to fifty designs at both the BOIP and the EUIPO (Rule 2.2 of the BCIP Implementing Regulations, Article 37(1) of the EU Design Regulation). Each design in a multiple application for an EU design stands on its own, so you can later assign, license or let one lapse without affecting the others (Article 37(4)). With a Benelux filing you can also limit the renewal to some of the designs (Article 3.14(4) BCIP).

Part of a product can also be a design (Article 3.1(2) BCIP). That’s useful when it’s precisely the leg of a table or the shade of a lamp that people recognise. If the product can be taken apart, a component is only protected if it remains visible in normal use (Article 3.4 BCIP, Article 4(2) of the EU Design Regulation). The mechanism in the base of a desk lamp falls outside that.

Since the 2025 reform of EU design law, an EU design can also protect a set of articles or an arrangement of items that together form an interior or exterior space, such as the fit-out of a shop or a trade fair stand (Article 3(2)(a) of the EU Design Regulation).

More about building an IP portfolio →

Slavish imitation of a product without design right or copyright

If your product falls outside design law and copyright, you can still take action on the basis of slavish imitation (slaafse nabootsing), a form of tort (Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code, in Dutch). The Supreme Court of the Netherlands set out the test in 2017 (Supreme Court, 19 May 2017, ECLI:NL:HR:2017:938, in Dutch). Your product must have its own distinctive identity on the market, meaning its appearance sets it apart from comparable products. The imitation must also be likely to confuse the public in a way the imitator could have avoided.

For a design label, two points in that judgment stand out. The distinctive identity can be diluted as more and more similar products come onto the market. You may then be expected to actively keep copies off the market (para. 3.4.3). The court may also take into account how the product looks after purchase, in a living room or an office. The packaging counts too (para. 3.4.4).

So keep track of the copies you come across and what you have done about them. A dated cease-and-desist letter later shows that you didn’t sit still.

Protecting a product’s packaging as a design or a trade mark

Packaging is also a product and can therefore be filed as a design (Article 3.1(4) BCIP, Article 3(2)(a) of the EU Design Regulation). A striking box or bottle then gets five years of protection, renewable up to 25 years. A trade mark lasts longer, as long as you renew it every ten years. The shape of packaging can also be a trade mark, provided that shape distinguishes your products from those of others (Article 2.1 BCIP).

For the shape of the product itself, a trade mark is a less obvious route. The BCIP refuses signs consisting exclusively of a shape that results from the nature of the product, that is necessary to obtain a technical result or that gives substantial value to the product (Article 2.2bis(1)(e)). With a design product, the shape is often the very reason people buy it. That leaves design law and copyright. How to register a trade mark is set out under trade mark law.

Designing a product on commission from a manufacturer

If you design a product as a freelancer for a manufacturer or label, in the Benelux the client counts as the designer once it orders the design for use in trade or industry. The client then also gets the copyright, unless you agree otherwise (Articles 3.8(2) and 3.29 BCIP). For an EU design, the Regulation has no such rule. There the right stays with you as the designer, unless you create the design as an employee (Article 14 of the EU Design Regulation).

If you give the manufacturer permission to file your design as a design right, you also assign the copyright to the extent that the design is embodied in that filing (Article 3.28(1) BCIP). So agree beforehand who gets what and what you receive in return, such as a fixed fee or a royalty per piece sold. The R&D agreement and assigning copyright pages explain how to put that in writing.

A lawyer to help protect your product design

For a new product line we look at which designs are worth a filing, which choices in the shape can carry copyright and how to record variants and parts. If a copy is already in a webshop or showroom, we set the routes side by side and choose the one with the best evidence. We draft the agreements with your factory and with freelance designers in the same round, so that the rights in the design are also yours on paper. If it’s about clothing or footwear, see protecting a clothing design.

Feel free to show us your design or the copy you came across. Call 020 675 88 21 or get in touch. Response within one working day.