Partial disclaimers

In some cases, you may want to protect the design that is applied to only part of a product, or you may want to exclude some visual features such as colour or decoration.

Registering a part of a product

In your application, you must clearly identify the design, and show us the part or parts of the product that you want to protect. You can do this by any of the following examples:

  • colouring the part or parts in question
  • drawing the part or parts in question in solid lines and the parts  where you don’t claim protection with dotted lines
  • carefully outlining the part or parts in coloured ink.

You must do this on all the views of the product.

You should then include a 'partial disclaimer'. It should appear in the relevant section of the application form and at the bottom of page 1 of the illustrations. You should word it very closely to the following example:

"The features of the design for which protection is sought are the part or parts of the product shaded in blue in the illustrations."

Disclaiming other visual features

If your design does not include a disclaimer, we will assume you wish to protect it exactly as it is looks in your illustrations. Sometimes you may only wish to protect a specific feature, for example the three-dimensional shape but not the surface decoration.

You can add a disclaimer by writing it next to your illustrations, or by filling in Box F of the application form.

The following are examples of partial disclaimers you can use:

"Protection is sought for the shape and configuration of the design only"

"No claim is made for the colour or colours shown"

"Protection is sought for the two-dimensional surface decoration only"

If you only wish to protect the shape of a product without limiting yourself to a particular colour, you can also submit plain black and white line drawings.

Disclaiming other items present in the illustrations

If you cannot avoid showing additional items which do not form part of the design, you should also disclaim these. For example:

"Protection is sought for the garment only. The mannequin does not form part of the design and is shown for illustration purposes only."