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I will admit I’m a bit late catching up on last week’s episode of Dragons’ Den.
United Kingdom
Intellectual Property
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I will admit I’m a bit late catching up on last week’s
episode of Dragons’ Den. I’ve watched the show for years
(usually as a double bill on a Thursday before The Apprentice) and
since becoming an attorney, my ears always prick up when they start
discussing IP protection.
Over the last 18 months I’ve expanded my designs practice,
so I was interested to hear the discussion around registered design
protection for the Glawning product on last week’s episode. In
particular, the comment that one of the Dragons could “pick up
the phone to China and have them in [their] warehouse in 12
weeks” caught my attention.
Whilst it is true that they could do this, whether this Dragon
could get away with selling them is another matter. Glawning have a
number of registered designs in the UK in relation to their
campervan awning product and, whilst some of these are narrower in
the sense that they are limited by the specific materials shown in
the design images, the business does own a broader line drawing
registration for the shape of the awning and tent.
I haven’t gone as far as to run a prior art search to fully
assess the novelty of this design but, if we assume that it is
novel, then the Dragon in question would likely face difficulties
selling the identical product in the UK market given the existence
of these design rights and indeed, a blog post from Glawning themselves indicates
that they have had disputes with third parties trying to replicate
their product. Glawning could also record their design rights with
Border Force authorities by way of an AFA (Application For Action)
to try to prevent the importation of infringing goods into the UK
in the first place.
Design registrations can sometimes be overlooked in favour of
patents or trade marks, but designs are often quicker and less
costly to obtain (certainly compared to a patent). They can also be
a useful weapon in the fight against copycat products – just take
Marks & Spencer’s victory against Aldi’s copycat light-up
gin bottle as an example.
So to summarise, don’t be put off by the apparent dismissal
of design registrations by the Dragons (and according to Glawning,
there was some off-camera debate on the topic that wasn’t shown
in the final edit). These rights can be incredibly valuable to
businesses of all sizes when defending against competitors or
lookalikes.
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