There is an increasing need to ensure accessible, modern, effective and coherent legal protection of design rights in the EU. Because existing EU legislation on design protection dates back to 1998 (Directive 98/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 1998 on the legal protection of designs) and 2002 (Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs) and no comprehensive evaluation has been carried out since its adoption.
Thus, the European Commission is launching a consultation on the evaluation of EU legislation on design protection. The objective is to gather sufficient stakeholder evidence and opinions on the EU legislation on design protection in order to establish the degree to which that legislation works as intended and can still be considered fit for purpose.
Therefore, in addition to relevant information from other studies, these consultations activities will allow the Commission to know if the above-mentioned legal acts need to be futher improved, modernised and harmonised.
The evaluation should explore the possibilities of a possible legislative review.
Enterprise Europe Brussels invites interested parties to give their opinion before 31 March 2019 (midnight Brussels time) on https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/design2018?surveylanguage=en
