Designs Act, 2000
No: 16 Dated: May, 25 2000
The Designs Act, 2000
(Act No. 16 of 2000)
An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to protection of designs.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Fifty-first Year of the Republic of India as follows:—
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY
1. Short title, extent and commencement.—(1) This Act may be called the Designs Act, 2000.
(2) It extends to the whole of India.
(3) It shall come into force on such date1 as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint; and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act, and any reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference to the coming into force of that provision.
2. Definitions.—In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,—
(a) “article” means any article of manufacture and any substance, artificial, or partly artificial and partly natural; and includes any part of an article capable of being made and sold separately;
(b) “Controller” means the Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks referred to in section 3;
(c) “copyright” means the exclusive right to apply a design to any article in any class in which the design is registered;
(d) “design” means only the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to any article whether in two dimensional or three dimensional or in both forms, by any industrial process or means, whether manual, mechanical or chemical, separate or combined, which in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the eye; but does not include any mode or principle of construction or anything which is in substance a mere mechanical device, and does not include any trade mark as defined in clause (v) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 (43 of 1958) or property mark as defined in section 479 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) or any artistic work as defined in clause (c) of section 2 of the Copyright Act, 1957 (14 of 1957).
(e) “High Court” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in clause (i) of section 2 of the Patents Act, 1970 (39 of 1970);
(f) “legal representative” means a person who in law represents the estate of a deceased person;
(g) “original”, in relation to a design, means originating from the author of such design and includes the cases which though old in themselves yet are new in their application;
(h) “Patent Office” means the patent office referred to in section 74 of the Patents Act, 1970 (39 of 1970);
(i) “prescribed” means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
(j) “proprietor of a new or original design”,—
(i) where the author of the design, for good consideration, executes the work for some other person, means the person for whom the design is so executed;
(ii) where any person acquires the design or the right to apply the design to any article, either exclusively of any other person or otherwise, means, in the respect and to the extent in and to which the design or right has been so acquired, the person by whom the design or right is so acquired; and
(iii) in any other case, means the author of the design; and where the property in or the right to apply, the design has devolved from the original proprietor upon any other person, includes that other person.
CHAPTER II
REGISTRATION OF DESIGNS
3. Controller and other officers.—(1) The Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks appointed under sub-section (1) of section 4 of the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 (43 of 1958) shall be the Controller of Designs for the purposes of this Act.
(2) For the purposes of this Act, the Central Government may appoint as many examiners and other officers with such designations as it thinks fit.
(3) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the officers appointed under sub-section (2) shall discharge under the superintendence and directions of the Controller such functions of the Controller under this Act as he may, from time to time, by general or special order in writing, authorise them to discharge.
(4) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of sub-section (3), the Controller may, by order in writing and for reasons to be recorded therein, withdraw any matter pending before an officer appointed under sub-section (2) and deal with such matter himself either de novo or from the stage it was so withdrawn or transfer the same to another officer appointed under sub-section (2) who may, subject to special directions in the order of transfer, proceed with the matter either de novo or from the stage it was so transferred.