Section 13 Patents and Designs Act 1971

Section 13 of the Patents and Designs Act 1971 is about Registrable designs. It is under ‘Designs’ of the Act. It provides as follows:

(1) Subject to this section, an industrial design is registrable if–
(a) it is new; and
(b) it is not contrary to public order or morality.

(2) Where application is made for the registration of an industrial design, the design shall be presumed to be new at the time of the application except in so far as the following provisions of this section provide otherwise.

(3) An industrial design is not new if, before the date of application for registration, it has been made available to the public anywhere and at any time by means of description, use or in any other way, unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the registrar that the creator of the design could not have known that it had been made so available.

(4) An industrial design shall not be deemed to have been made available to the public solely by reason of the fact that within the period of six months preceding the filing of the application for registration the creator has exhibited it in an official or officially recognised exhibition.

(5) An industrial design is not new merely because it differs in minor or inessential
ways from an earlier design or concerns a type of product other than the type with which an earlier design is concerned.

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