The Designs Register at the UKIPO: now more useful with publication information
Extra information is now available on the (UK Intellectual Property Office) UKIPO website, which increases the usefulness of the Register of UK Designs to interested third parties. Specifically, the publication date of the design is now stated.
The publication date of a UK registered design is not to be confused with the registration date, which under UK design law is the same as the filing date. The registration date has been stated for many years. The publication date has been the bit of information that has been missing and which often would be of interest to third parties, such as somebody who wishes to use a UK registered design as a piece of prior art and thus needs to know the date on which it was put into the public domain (the date on which it was published by the UKIPO).
The publication date can now be easily ascertained simply by looking up the UK registered design on the Register on the UKIPO website. The UKIPO is implementing this for new cases going forwards, and it appears that the UKIPO intends retrospectively to add the publication date information to old cases (or at least some old cases), which until now have not included the publication date as part of their online register entry.
