International Design Filing and Registration
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Designs communicate your brand’s identity and stand as valuable intangible assets. International design filing through the Hague System allows designers and businesses to obtain international design protection across multiple countries via a single application, ensuring efficiency and certainty for businesses worldwide. This centralised route avoids the expense and complexity of filing separately in each jurisdiction and ensures international design registration is intelligible, compliant, and manageable.
WIPO’s Hague System is an internationally recognised mechanism that facilitates international industrial design registration across WIPO contracting parties.
Key highlights:
As an experienced international design law firm, we provide comprehensive support:
You must be a national, habitual resident, or operating from a member country of the Hague System. All designs must adhere to a single class under the Locarno Classification.
Submit high-quality images photographs or drawings for each design. Each international application (Form DM/1) must include reproductions, designated countries, and associated fees.
You can file directly with WIPO via eHague (available in English, French or Spanish) or indirectly through your national IP office acting as a deposition office.
WIPO conducts a formal review, checks for replication, ensures fee payment, and registers the design. Results are published in the International Designs Bulletin.
Each designated office applies its local laws if no refusal is received within the stipulated timeframe, protection is deemed granted in those countries.
International registrations last five years and are renewable in successive five-year periods. Any changes – such as ownership transfers are centrally managed through WIPO.
Benefit | Details |
|---|---|
Time & Cost Efficiency | One application for multiple countries, one fee structure, central management. |
Global Coverage | Protect up to 100 designs across 90+ countries. |
Legal Certainty | Publication and international registration provide enforceable design rights. |
Centralised Control | Ease of renewal, updates, and ownership changes via WIPO’s eHague. |
Strategic Advantage | Strong protection supports investment, licensing, and enforcement campaigns. |
Our global clients include:
Don’t let your design go unprotected. At Kayser & Company, our expert international design attorneys guide you through seamless international design filing, strategic country selection, and centralised portfolio management. Reach out today to start your international industrial design registration journey with confidence.
No—you can file your first design application directly through WIPO without a prior national or regional filing.
Up to 100 designs in one application, provided they fall under the same Locarno classification class.
Initial protection lasts five years and is renewable in further five-year increments per country’s rules.
Yes. WIPO’s eHague platform enables management of renewals, changes, and updates in one place.
That country must issue a refusal to WIPO; otherwise, the international registration stands and protection is valid.