Protection of Graphical User Interfaces as Registered Design Rights or Design Patents in Belgium

The official fees for filing a design application (including GUIs) with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) are as follows:  

• First design: €150
• Designs 2 to 10: €75 each
• Designs 11 to 20: €38 each
• Designs 21 to 50: €32 each   

Fee for adding distinguishing features: €42

This fee applies when you include additional distinguishing features in your design application. It can be charged both at the time of the initial application if such features are added, or later if you submit amendments to include new distinguishing characteristics.

Fee for requesting publication suspension: €40

The owner (holder) can decide to postpone the publication of their design, for example, if they do not yet want competitors to be aware of it.

Yes, renewal fees apply. A design registration is valid for five years from the filing date (depot date, i.e. being the date a design application is submitted (the filing date) and complies with the legal filing requirements). The registration can be renewed every five years, up to a maximum total term of 25 years.

The design owner must pay the renewal fee on each 5th anniversary of the filing date to keep the design right in force. The fees are as follows:

• Renewal of the 1^st design: €102
• For the 2^nd to 10^th design: €51
• For the 11^th to 20^th design: €25
• For the 21^st to 50^th design: €21

Additional fee for renewals requests or payments within six months after the expiry: €12.

Assuming no Registry objections are identified, the typical timeline from the filing to the grant of a design right in the Benelux is approximately 3 to 6 months. The Benelux Office primarily conducts a formal examination of the application. The Office does not substantively examine whether the design is truly new or has individual character.

Once registered, the design is published by the Benelux Office. However, applicants have the option to defer publication for up to 12 months.

For Benelux designs, the self-disclosure period is 12 months. This means that the designer must file the application within 12 months of the first public disclosure of the relevant design in order for that disclosure not to count as prior art.

Up to a maximum of 12 months.  

A POA is generally not required to file a design right application with the Benelux Office for IP. The applicant should, however, be confident that it is the legal owner of the design. When acting on behalf of a company or as a representative of the legal owner, the Office usually accepts that a representative who declares that he or she is acting for a client has the necessary authority, so submitting a POA is typically unnecessary. That said, in certain situations – such as reducing the scope of protection, surrendering the design, or cancelling a registration – the Benelux Office may require a POA or other proof of authorization.

Priority documents or WIPO DAS codes do not need to be filed at the time of application. However, certain information can be requested to be filed later, subject to specific formalities:

• Declaration timing: a claim to priority must be made either with the filing or via a special declaration submitted within one month after filing, following formal requirements set in the implementing regulations and upon payment of the relevant fees.
• Required information: the priority claim must include the country, filing date, number, and holder of the earlier application. If the Benelux applicant is different from the applicant of the original filing, documentation proving the applicant’s rights must be added.
• Formal declaration: if made by special declaration, it must include the applicant’s name and address, their (or their representative's) signature, the design’s representation, and all priority details.
• Supporting documents: the Office may request copies of documents supporting the priority right. These must then be provided.
• Correction period: if formalities are not met, the Office will notify the applicant and allow at least one month to remedy the deficiencies. This deadline may be extended, but no more than six months from the date of the first notification. Failure to comply results in loss of the priority claim

Apart from the formal requirements, Benelux Office for Intellectual Property only verifies whether the design is contrary to public order or morality. Only the courts can assess whether a design is truly new and has an individual character, if the novelty or the individual character are being disputed by a party in the legal proceedings.  

No. There is no substantive examination of the design and the examiners of the Benelux Office will not examine the design’s novelty or individual character (no prior art searches). Post grant, third parties will be able to challenge the validity of the design.

The Benelux Office does not conduct a substantive examination. It does not assess visual similarity or subject matter overlap between the claimed design and earlier designs. However, it does verify compliance with the formal requirements, as outlined under Q9 of this guide.  

No, design applications filed with the Benelux Office are not open to opposition neither before nor after registration. The Benelux Office does not offer an administrative opposition procedure for designs. Validity can only be challenged after registration through court proceedings.  

The Benelux Office does not set a maximum number of views per design. It does make clear that a design must be represented by at least one view and recommends submitting multiple views to clearly illustrate the design from different angles.  

GUIs that involve sequences or animations can be protected under a single design application with the Benelux Office. The applicant may submit a series of static images (snapshots) that depict the GUI at different stages of the animation. These images should clearly and sequentially illustrate the progression of the animation to effectively convey the dynamic aspects of the design.

It's important to note that design protection covers the visual appearance of a product, not its technical or functional aspects. Thus, the submitted images should focus on the aesthetic features.

Currently, the Benelux Office does not accept video files as part of design applications. However, significant changes are forthcoming. Under the EU's Design Reform Package, which aims to modernize and harmonize design protection across EU member states, new provisions will allow for the registration of designs as videos in the official registry. The Benelux Office has indicated its intention to implement these changes as part of aligning with the EU-wide reforms.

Written disclaimers are not permitted. However, visual disclaimers are allowed and can be used to indicate which features are not claimed. To exclude elements from protection, applicants should use dotted lines in drawings or blur non-protected features in photographs. Textual additions such as annotations, legends, or technical dimensions are not allowed; only minimal labels indicating the view (e.g., front, side, rear) are permitted.

The Benelux Office sets out the following guidelines on drawing conventions:

• Neutral background (the model must be clearly visible);
• Explanations using text, legends, or technical dimensions are not allowed;
• Visual disclaimers in a drawing: elements that are not part of the design are indicated by dotted lines; and
• Visual disclaimers in a photo: elements that are not part of the design are blurred.

While the Benelux Office does not require designs to be submitted in black and white, it is important to note that if a design is registered in colour, protection is limited to that specific colour — and vice versa for black and white.

• A GUI can also be protected by copyright as a graphic work, provided it is original and not copied from an existing work.
• It is also possible to protect GUIs by filing for trademark protection through the registration of elements such as the screen display, icons, brands or logos.

The additional IP rights can co-exist alongside a registered design right:

Copyright:
Design rights protect the visual aspects of a GUI but do not exclude the application of copyright law, which protects original works of authorship. While designs must be novel and have individual character, works of authorship must reflect the personality of the author, as an expression of his or her free and creative choices.

Copyright law protection can coexist with design rights.

Trademarks:
Design rights protect the visual design of a GUI but do not exclude trademark protection for distinctive elements within the GUI, such as a screen display, logos, brands or other signs that serve as source identifiers. Trademark rights protect brand recognition and can coexist with design rights to safeguard both the appearance of the GUI and the branding elements it contains.

As stated under Q16 of this guide, only visual disclaimers are allowed to indicate which features are not claimed. In practice, this can be challenging and may cause applicants to make their de-sign too broad, increasing the risk that the design becomes more vulnerable to invalidity attacks. There is often added complexity when the design needs to exclude specific elements which may change and evolve, and which the applicant is not seeking to protect, whilst still claiming protec-tion in the overall appearance of the GUI. Therefore, applicants should seek professional advice to ensure that their drawings effectively communicate which parts of the design are not being claimed.

To ensure a robust protection for a GUI, it is important that all of the features to be protected are clearly shown in the representations. The applicant can add various representations of a single design. For example: a perspective view, a general view and a top view. The Benelux applicant should take the following guidelines into account:

• one image for each view;
• neutral background (the design must be clearly visible); 
• it is not permitted to provide explanations in texts, legends, or technical dimensions;
• visual disclaimers with a drawing: use a dotted line to show elements that do not form part of the design;
• visual disclaimers in a photograph: blur elements in the photo that do not form part of the design;
• file format: JPG, 200 to 300 dpi, print format between 1.5 and 8 cm, no larger than 2 MB.

The only text that may be included in the image is an indication of the viewing angle (front, side or rear view, for example). No other text is permitted in the image, such as an indication of mate-rials or dimensions.

The crux of a well-defined design application is to focus the representations on the elements of the design that are the most valuable and which represent the essence of the protected design. Besides submitting multiple representations to accurately define the GUI, it is also important that applicants use appropriate visual disclaimers to ensure that their application is not invalidated by giving the impression that irrelevant subject matter (which could lead to the claimed design be-coming too broad or too unclear to be registrable) are intended to be protected. Applicants can also take advantage of the relatively cost-effective option of adding distinguishing features to their application.  

Choose carefully between colour and black-and-white representations: A design registered in colour is protected only in that specific colour scheme, while a black-and-white registration pro-tects only the monochrome version. Consider filing multiple versions if colour is a distinctive el-ement.

Use publication deferment to maintain confidentiality if you need more time before disclosing your design. This keeps your design confidential for up to 12 months and can be lifted at any time.  
 

 There are a number of key differences and similarities between applications made via the Hague system and at the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property:

• Applicants are able to include an unlimited number of illustrations in their Hague application. Likewise, for a Benelux application, there is also no limit on the number of images that can be included.
• The Hague system allows for a maximum of 30 months for deferment of publication of the application. On the contrary, the Benelux has a maximum period of 12 months.
• The Hague system has the same requirements on presenting its images. It also does not allow videos to be used yet, only static images are allowed.  

Although filing via the Hague system allows you to seek protection in multiple countries, and enables WIPO to undertake a central formalities check, the substantive examination process is left to the IP office of each designated country and their rules can vary considerably.

Yes, some changes are expected. In 2024, the Council of the EU and the EU Parliament approved the adoption of the Design Legislative Reform package. The final texts were published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 18 November 2024: 

• Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 on Community designs and repealing Commission Regulation (EC) No 2246/2002.
• Directive (EU) 2024/2823 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on the legal protection of designs (recast).

Following their entry into force, the amendments to the Regulation will apply in two phases. The first phase, applicable from 1 May 2025, primarily involves terminology updates (the Community design is replaced by the European Union design). Most of the substantive amendments will come in the second phase, applicable from 1 July 2026.

The Directive gives EU Member States 36 months from the entry into force (i.e. until 9 December 2027 at the latest, see Article 36 of the Directive) to transpose the new rules of the Directive into their national legislation.   

Key changes:

• The definitions of ‘product’ and ‘design’ are broadened. Design protection now also covers non-physical forms, such as digital or virtual objects (e.g. in the Metaverse).
• Design registration is modernised: representations can be static, dynamic or animated, using technologies like videos or 3D modelling. Authorities are encouraged to harmonise technical standards.
• The scope of protection is expanded to include acts like creating, copying or sharing software that records a design to enable infringing production; particularly targeting 3D printing.
• Protection also applies to counterfeit goods in transit, aligning with existing trademark law.
• Finally, the long-debated repair clause has been adopted, liberalising the market for spare parts; especially relevant for the car industry. Since the Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property already contains such a clause, transitional measures may not be needed.