Design Rights before and after Brexit

The purpose of this Practice Note is to summarise, at a glance, the various different design rights available in the UK prior to and following Brexit.

In summary, the UK’s decision to leave the EU means that, following IP completion day (11.00 pm on 31 December 2020), the UK ceased to be subject to the EU design regime (covering registered Community designs (RCDs) and unregistered Community designs (UCDs), as they were then called). The UK is no longer included in the territory covered by these unitary rights (or by international design registrations which designate the EU) and the UK is no longer subject to Regulation (EC) 6/2002.

As a consequence, the UK set up a system whereby the holder of an RCD or a UCD as at IP completion day automatically became the holder of a comparable design right in the UK.

Designs that were protected as an RCD were automatically mirrored by a new UK equivalent right called the re-registered design (or re-registered international design), and designs that