The Evolution of Market Entry Industrial Design Protection : An International Comparative Analysis

The recent US. enactment of the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act is another step in the trend for improved industrial design protection of products when they are first introduced into the market ("market entry protection"). The goal has been relatively prompt enforcement of a right occurring at the time of market entry. The United States has cautiously added market entry protection for selected products when the economic situation has justified the change. The United States' slow development of market entry industrial design protection is in contrast with other countries, like France, where copyright protection has served that purpose for many years. Some foreign design registration systems have given fairly prompt market entry protection by granting rights back to the filing date. These registration systems had some delays in initiating enforcement owing to the registration procedures. An early example of market entry protection for products was the UK. design right. It protected most appearance features of a product against copying for five years' exclusive right, followed by a requirement to license the design for the following five years. Another example of improved industrial design market entry protection was in Japan, with its new unfair competition law that prevented slavish, almost identical copying of a product for three years from product introduction. In a similar manner, a proposed E. U. registration system will give a three-year right to prevent copying product industrial designs without requiring registration