Design grants protection for the appearance of the whole or part or the ornamentation of the product. This industrial property protection form is popular among the handicrafts due to its low registration and maintenance costs. In my opinion, designs are slightly pushed into the background compared to patents or trademarks, although the appearance of the product can be decisive in the choice of the consumer. The number of design applications shows a decreasing number also due to the non-conventional trademarks. While in 2015 more than four thousand design applications were filed before the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, this number dropped from year to year. In 2019, we could locate only 3396 design applications in the database of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office. Parallel to this, the number of design applications filed before the European Union Intellectual Property Office has not increased in the last years. By way of comparison the number of national trademark applications is stagnating around 55 thousand.

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