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

• Official fee for filing a registered design application (electronically) with the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) are:
  • One design: £50
  • Up to 10: £70
  • Up to 20: £90
  • Up to 30: £110
  • Up to 40: £130
  • Up to 50: £150

• Must renew the registration on its fifth anniversary, for up to a maximum of 25 years.
• Fees:
  • 1^st renewal: £70
  • 2^nd renewal: £90
  • 3^rd renewal: £110
  • 4^th renewal: £140
  • Late renewal (additional fee): £24 per month

• Once the UKIPO has examined the application, and assuming there are no refusals raised, the typical time to registration is within three weeks.
• If there are any issues, the UKIPO will notify the applicant and give them at least two months to resolve the issues.
• There is also the option for the applicant to defer their registration for up to 12 months (though the design will not be protected as a registered design during the period in which the application is deferred, which means that the applicant may have to prove copying in the event of an infringement during the deferment period).

The grace period in the UK is 12 months, and therefore the designer must file the application within the 12-month grace period (i.e. within 12 months of the first disclosure of the relevant design).

Up to a maximum of 12 months

• The applicant must be the legal owner of the design they seek to register, unless they are applying on behalf of a company or as a representative of the legal owner. 
• Generally, employers will own the rights to any designs created by their employees when developed during the course of their employment.
• Where an independent designer or a contractor is used to create a design, irrespective of whether registered protection is likely to be sought in respect of the design, the instructing or commissioning party should think carefully about integrating appropriate IP assignment clauses within the written agreement with the designer/contractor to ensure the legal ownership of the design (and any other IP assets created) vests in the correct party.

The applicant has three options when seeking to claim priority from an earlier design application:

• The first is to, at application stage, confirm that the design contained in the priority claim is identical to the new UK design application (by following the instructions supplied on the electronic application).
• The second is to file a declaration on a Designs Form ‘DC1’, i.e. to confirm that the design (to which the priority claim relates to) is identical to the corresponding design in their new UK design application.
  • Note, where the application claiming priority has not been submitted with a Designs Form DC1, the applicant must provide the Registrar with either a completed form, or a certified copy of the priority document, within three months from the date of filing of the UK application. If, during subsequent legal proceedings, the relevant designs are deemed not to be identical, there is a risk that the priority claim will be forfeited.
• The third option is to provide the UKIPO with a certified copy of the convention document. Once the examiner receives this document, they will verify that the relevant designs are identical, and that the filing date and applicant details appropriately correspond with the earlier application.

The examination stage of a design registration is used by the UKIPO to consider possible formality issues only (and is not used as a substantive examination of the application), i.e. this stage is essentially an assessment conducted by the UKIPO to ensure the design is registrable according to the legal and procedural requirements of a registered design.

• Again, there is no substantive examination of the design being applied for, and as such the UKIPO will not examine the design’s novelty or individual character by looking at prior art.
• However, post grant, third parties will be able to object to the registration by challenging the validity of the registration on the basis of, for example, prior designs already in existence (e.g. by pointing to prior art which invalidates the registered design’s novelty/individual character).

• If an applicant declares that a priority claim applies because the filing is ‘the same’ as the earlier filing, the examiner will assume that the declaration has been made in good faith and thus will not undertake a substantive examination. If subsequent legal proceedings identify that the designs are not identical, however, there is a risk that the priority claim may be forfeited. 
• If an applicant does not make such a declaration, it must provide certified copies of the priority documents, which will be formally examined and if appropriate, refusals may be raised.  

Not at the UKIPO application stage, though, again, third parties have the opportunity to challenge the registration once it has been granted, e.g. based on the design lacking the essential requirements of novelty or individual character.

Applicants can include up to 12 illustrations if applying online; if applicants want to include more than this, an application via post is instead required.

• The relevant animation must be represented by including in the design application a clear sequence of the animation, specifically by filing a series of static images. The UKIPO’s Designs Examination Practice guidelines notes that the most effective way to represent GUIs is via a single self-contained ‘screen shot’ of the static interface layout. Video uploads are not currently accepted by the UKIPO.
• Up to twelve views can be used to show the sequence of the animation, at different specific points in time of the animation. All twelve views must be visually related (i.e. they must all obviously relate to the same visual sequence) and the specific progression of the moving image from one view to the next must be clearly discernible from those images.
• The addition or removal of elements within the images will typically result in a refusal being issued by the UKIPO on the grounds that such changes result in more than one design (or multiple embodiments of a design) being claimed, unless the manner in which those elements appear or disappear from view is easily understood from the images. Updated guidance from the UKIPO on best practices for filing GUI designs is anticipated during the course of 2025.

• Yes, to help define the scope of protection given to the registered design being applied for.
• Disclaimers can relate to, for example, patterns or colours which are not being claimed as protected features of the design, or in order to limit the application to specific parts of a product.
• To record a disclaimer or limitation in practice, this can be either shown visually (graphically) by indicating which part of the article an applicant is seeking to protect (such as using a clear visual border or greying-out the irrelevant elements), or by recording a written disclaimer/limitation within the design application.

• Generally the UKIPO accepts the represent of a design in two-dimensional form via the use of line drawings, photographs and computer graphic rendering, as long as the representations are clear and well-defined.
• The below images illustrate some of the UKIPO’s issued guidelines on the preferred drawing conventions (and as noted above, updated and expanded guidance relating specifically to drawing conventions for animated designs and GUIs is under development by the UKIPO and is expected in the course of 2025).
• Furthermore, where photographs are used to represent the design, the UKIPO notes that the photograph must be of a good quality/resolution, enabling all features of the design to be clearly visible and suitable for reproduction.

• GUIs can be protected under copyright law, not as a computer program, but as a work of copyright, such as a ‘graphic work’. This is subject to the relevant GUI work being the author’s own intellectual creation, and the technical expressions of the components in the GUI not being dictated by a technical function.
• GUIs may also be protected as a registered trade mark, through the registration of the elements in the GUIs, such as the screen display, icons, brands or logos.

These additional IP rights often co-exist alongside registered design rights. By way of an example, a GUI may be protected as a UK registered design, with the protection lasting for a maximum duration of 25 years in the UK. Concurrently, if the GUI or elements of the GUI such as logos or other artwork qualify for copyright protection under UK copyright law, such protection may last for the lifetime of the creator (i.e. the designer) plus 70 years after their death.

• Seeking to protect design ideas or concepts: design applications for GUIs are most likely to face obstacles where they seek to protect design principles or ideas (such as a type of motion sequence, a style of movement, a method of transformation of on-screen elements, or an animation concept) which could visually manifest in a variety of ways. UK registered designs only protect the specific appearance of the filed design, against others using designs producing the “same overall impression”. Designers should take account of the limitations of the registered designs system when seeking protection for visual design principles.
• Excluding variable design elements from protection: although the applicant can include disclaimers/limitations in their design application, there is a difficulty with attempting to exclude content that is likely to change with use/when being interacted with by the user, and which is therefore dynamic and not ‘fixed’. 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 protection in the overall appearance of the GUI.
• Attempting to illustrate animations: there is also the obvious difficulty of depicting more elaborate or complex animations/elements that are difficult to show clearly in just 12 static illustrations (where the online filing process is used). This upper limit creates a logistical/practical issues where multiple on-screen elements are moving and changing at the same time, if the precise way in which this happens is not obvious from the illustrations. At present, such designs are likely to receive an objection from the UKIPO.

• The UKIPO’s detailed guidelines on the representations and drawing conventions indicates that clarity is fundamental for adequate UK registered design protection. This is particularly important for GUIs, which need to be clearly defined using various (often detailed) illustrations. The key for clarity is to ensure that anyone consulting the design register can easily understand the progression of the animation from one view to the next from the illustrations without requiring further explanation.
• The crux of a well-defined UK design application is to focus the illustrations on the elements of the design that are the most valuable and which represent the essence of the design in which protection is sought. Along with submitting multiple representations to accurately define their GUI, it is also important that applicants use appropriate disclaimers to ensure that their application is not invalidated by giving the impression that irrelevant subject matter (which could lead to the claimed design becoming too broad or unclear to be registrable) are intended to be protected. Designers should also take advantage of the relatively cost-effective option of adding further designs to their application, to claim different variations or versions of their design as a ‘safety net’ in case some receive a refusal or are later declared invalid.
• As with all UK registered design applications, we recommend professional legal advice is sought at an early stage in order to obtain expert guidance on the best way to present your GUIs. We have a dedicated Design Law Group available to advise on this complex area of law. Further information can be found here.

• There are a number of key differences between applications made via the Hague system and at the UKIPO:
  • Applicants are able to include an unlimited number of illustrations in their Hague application, as compared to the limit of up to 12 illustrations for UK applications. UK designation under Hague would only protect the first 12 of the filed images. In such cases, the order in which images are submitted at WIPO is crucial for determining the scope of protection in the UK.
  • Where a Hague application is made with a UK designation, the UKIPO will object if the application does not meet local requirements.
    • As UKIPO examination practices for GUI designs are currently stricter than, for example, those of the EUIPO, objections are more likely if UK legal advice is not obtained pre-filing.
    • UK practice is also notably different to US protections for GUIs. Given the UKIPO examines the application to its own standards, this may mean a Hague application based on US-style visual representations and written claims will very likely struggle to meet the UKIPO requirements.
  • Where an applicant is claiming priority for a Hague application, but basing it on a foreign design filing (especially one filed in the US), it is very likely that the applicant would have to amend the filed images to meet examiner objections in the UK. This raises the question of whether the priority claim will fail if the design in the later application ends up being materially different to the design from which priority is being claimed.
• The Hague system also allows for a maximum of 30 months for deferment of publication of the application, running from the filing date (or where priority is claimed, from the priority date of the application concerned). This is subject, however, to the accepted deferment dates for the relevant designated country; for example, for the UK, this would be subject to the shorter deferment period of 12 months from the filing date.

• The UKIPO is currently reviewing and updating its practice guidance on designs depicting GUIs and animations. The release date for the new guidance is not yet confirmed, but is anticipated to be in the course of 2025.
• In addition, we expect the relative freedom for UK courts to diverge from EU case law precedents in interpreting laws and legislation relating to design rights will become evident over the coming years, following Brexit.