GovWire

The UK is home to some of the worlds best designers and design-led businesses and makes an important contribution to the UK economy. In 2013, the design economy generated 71.7 billion in gross value added (GVA), which is 7.2% of total GVA. Design industry turnover increased by 19.7% between 2009 and 2013 and design-influenced exports grew by 51.4%.

The government has consulted with the design community on how to improve the system to meet the needs of designers more effectively now and in the future.

Reduced fees are the latest in a series of improvements to the registered designs service such as online application and simpler and cheaper ways to appeal decisions. The IPO has implemented a new IT system and this will make the process more efficient. It is only right that the savings are passed on to customers.

During the registered design fees consultation earlier this year, stakeholders were supportive of the changes proposed. SMEs and individual designers were particularly in favour of the reductions.

In the government response Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister of State for Intellectual Property and Energy said;

I am pleased that our designers will be able to take advantage of the new fees and that creative design-led businesses will benefit from the significant savings available.

As a result, the Registered Design (Fees) Rules 2016 (SI 2016/889) sets out the new fees and structure.

As an example of the savings to be made for registering your designs.

• for a single online application, the fee is reduced by 10 to 50
• for multiple applications, the savings are bigger. An application containing 2-10 designs will cost 70, with each extra block of up to 10 costing an additional 20
• under the old fees, an application containing 40 designs would cost 1620. Under the new fees, it will cost 130

These changes mean that businesses and individual designers will find it more affordable to protect as many of their designs as they wish through registration. In particular, those who produce collections.

Renewals will also be cheaper. As an example of the savings to be made for renewing and maintaining your designs;

• renewing for the 6-10 years will cost 70, down from 130
• the savings increase over the 25 years available renewing for the 20-25 years will cost 140, down from 450

These changes reduce the cost of renewing your registration where the design is still important to you.

We are pleased that the changes to the fees came into effect on 1 October 2016. Guidance for business is available.

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