UK Design Law Consultation Spotlight Series: GUIs and Animation Designs

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) is currently consulting on the future of design law in the UK. In our “Spotlight Series”, the CMS Design Law Team breaks down each consultation topic to highlight the key issues and summarise the proposed solutions.

Section C of the consultation addresses the design protection of Graphical User Interfaces (“GUIs”) and animated designs, which we refer to here as “digital products”. The current system of protection for digital products in the UK has fallen under scrutiny and this consultation is a rare opportunity to help reshape the regime for the future.

Why is protecting the IP rights in digital products important?

From reading the news and watching TV to buying groceries and booking holidays, the GUI is now the primary method of interaction between you and the companies that provide the goods and services you purchase or consume. There is an increasing shift towards the use of digital products and away from the physical products which we might previously have used to, for example, take a photograph, record music, adjust the temperature in our home or car, or to pay for goods and services.

Not only are GUIs replacing physical items to perform purposeful tasks like these but businesses also recognise their role in conveying brand-defining qualities like trustworthiness, ease of use, sophistication, luxury or ruggedness. Just as businesses may agonise over the location of physical stores, the ergonomics of physical buttons or the feel of a brochure to your fingertips, GUIs too are increasingly being designed to perform these functions. As such, many businesses are recognising that they can be a significant source of competitive advantage when done right and a source of complaint and potential liability when done poorly. But to a company considering whether to make this level of investment in GUIs, the natural question is - can such digital products be adequately protected against copycats?

Theoretically, there is no more powerful protection for GUIs than as a registered design. However, the current UK regime presents certain practical challenges, particularly for designers looking to protect animations or interactive GUI elements as a design, making the UK a less attractive jurisdiction for protecting pioneering digital products.

The UKIPO’s consultation proposes significant and welcome updates to how the designs regime accommodates digital products. This Spotlight summarises the current legal position, sets out the reform options on which the government seeks views, and highlights practical implications for rights holders and practitioners.

The current approach

The UK’s Registered Designs Act 1949 (“RDA”) predates the digital era. It confers protection on “the appearance of the whole or part of a product,” but the legal definitions of “design” and “product” have not been updated to address digital and intangible outputs expressly. While UKIPO practice accepts designs for certain digital products, the fact that digital products are not mentioned in primary legislation may lead to confusion and inconsistency.

The UKIPO recognises that some stakeholders also view the registry machinery as incomplete for “digital-first” assets. Currently, applicants cannot simply file an animation, and must register moving designs as a sequence of still images. That approach can be strained: different frames may appear to disclose more than one design and representing transitions with certainty can be challenging. Moreover, there is limited case law on how to assess “a single design” in an animated sequence and on the scope of protection which should be conferred on such designs.

There is currently provision to file a description of a registered design which can be used to help examiners to interpret design drawings. However, this description is not published and is said to have no effect on the extent of protection.

Proposals for reform

The consultation advances a suite of options for digital product design registration aimed at making registrations clearer, more technologically fit-for-purpose and internationally interoperable. It presents a set of options on computer-generated designs intended to preserve incentives for human creativity and maintain coherence across rights. For GUIs and animated designs, the options include:

• Clarifying that digital products are protectable as registered designs. Recommending that the government propose legislation to clarify the RDA to make explicit that “design” encompasses animation, transition and movement, and that “product” includes 2D and intangible items such as digital goods. This would broadly align with recent EU reforms.
• Introducing new infringing acts for digital products such as “downloading”, but limiting when these acts are actionable. EU reforms have also specified new ways in which digital goods registrations are infringed, while also introducing a “purpose limitation” to the newly restrained acts. This recognises the fact that digital products are distributed and exploited in completely different ways to physical products, and can sometimes be reproduced without the design owner necessarily suffering any injury. The UKIPO has requested views on the appropriateness of these changes to the RDA.
• Allowing additional file formats. The UKIPO could accept moving files (e.g., MP4/WebM), enabling applicants to present movement more faithfully. Here, the consultation recognises potential knock-on issues. Priority-claim compatibility across jurisdictions, certificate production, file size and constraints are also consulted on.
• Publishing, and potentially giving legal effect to, descriptions. Applicants could file and have published an explanatory description (e.g., transitions between frames) alongside stills and/or video, with views sought on whether that description should bear on the scope of protection akin to a written disclaimer.
• Providing detailed guidance on how to represent animated designs. The UKIPO proposes to clarify, in practice, what it considers an acceptable animated or moving design; how progression in a sequence of stills is assessed; how transitions may be explained; and how relationships between screens in software or apps are evaluated. The aim is to reduce uncertainty without changing the law.

These options are not mutually exclusive.

Our thoughts

We believe GUI and animation protection by registered design can be a versatile, affordable, flexible approach to protecting commercially important IP, which deserves protection that recognises the significant investment businesses place in GUIs. For this reason, we think clarifying the legislation to explicitly protect these kinds of design registrations will be welcomed by designers. Singapore, whose own Registered Designs Act is closely modelled on the RDA, has already enacted amendments to account for these novel digital products.

A further benefit of legislative change would be bringing the UK’s regime into closer alignment with the EU’s progressive reforms. This is particularly so regarding the specific provisions for infringement of digital products. Alignment will enable multinational design businesses to enact consistent strategies across Europe’s two principal design jurisdictions.

Taken together, the proposals would provide more certainty for designers and also make the process of coordinating protection for digital products easier.  Particularly if, for example, animation files could be registered.

However, the UKIPO is right to recognise potential trade-offs which may result from making changes which are inconsistent with other international regimes.  For example, if other offices do not accept new filing formats, applicants could unwittingly lose the right of priority. Likewise, the treatment and legal status of narrative descriptions could lead to uncertainty as to the scope of any priority claims. Similarly, given that the speed of technological change is one of the primary driving forces in favour of reform, any implemented changes must recognise the need for clear, technology-neutral and flexible processes in order to future-proof the statutory regime.

We recommend that design-led businesses, particularly those with digital products assets, participate in and pay close attention to this part of the consultation. The call for views is due to close on 27 November 2025. Responses can be sent via the UK IPO’s Citizens Space (https://ipoconsultations.citizenspace.com/ipo/uk-designs-consultation/) or by emailing designsconsultation@ipo.gov.uk.