EUIPO has announced that applications are open for the 10^th edition of the DesignEuropa Awards, which will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September 2026.

The application period runs from 10^th November 2025 to 20^th February 2026. There are four categories:

• Entrepreneurs and Small Companies Award
• Industry Award
• Next-Generation Design Award
• Lifetime Achievement Award

Anyone can nominate a designer for one of the awards. The rules of the Awards are available on EUIPO’s website here.

Full information, including eligibility, dates and links to make nominations, is available here.

Read about the 2025 winners of the DesignEuropa Awards on the Class 99 blog here.

Registration is open for the first MARQUES Design Symposium, which will take place in Frankfurt, Germany on 29th and 30th January 2026.

You can view the programme on the MARQUES website here and register here.

The Symposium, titled “Product Design – From Cradle to Eternity”, will include sessions on: designs and designers; proof of creation and ownership in a world driven by AI; the added value of design registration; the harmonization of unfair competition; and trade mark protection of product design.

There will also be workshops on strategic use of the different types of protection; multi-national design registrations; and online enforcement.

Speakers include designers, in-house counsel and lawyers specializing in design law from various jurisdictions.

Registration for the MARQUES Design Symposium includes lunch on both days, and an evening reception and dinner on 29th January.

Registration cost €750 (MARQUES members) or €890 (non-members). Accommodation at the Frankfurt Spin Tower Hotel can be booked as part of your registration at the special rate of €133 per night.

The Design Symposium will take place at the NH Collection Frankfurt Spin Tower (photo from the hotel website).

For more information, visit the dedicated page on the MARQUES website.

The winners of the DesignEuropa Awards 2025 were unveiled at a ceremony in Copenhagen on 23 September.

The winners were:

•             Entrepreneurs and Small Companies Award: Overade for its LIFE bike helmet. The French-designed helmet includes built-in lights and wireless features to improve safety and visibility for urban cyclists.

•             Industry Award: Ciarko Design, Poland’s largest manufacturer of premium kitchen hoods, for its Mono kitchen extractor hood. In awarding the prize, the jury considered the product’s combination of design, technology and environmental consciousness.

•             Next Generation Design Award: David Borovic, a young designer from Romania, whose projects include SYNTHESIS, a hybrid-electric bicycle demonstrating a focus on eco-friendly materials, ergonomics and functional design.

•             Lifetime Achievement Award: Dutch designer Hella Jongerius was recognised  for her contributions to textiles, furniture, and industrial design. Over her 30-year career, she advanced the use of material and colour, and her human-centred approach has influenced the industry’s understanding of design and environmental issues.

This was the sixth edition of the DesignEuropa Awards, which honour outstanding designs that are protected as registered EU designs and celebrate influential figures in the industry.

The winners were chosen by the DesignEuropa Awards jury from a diverse pool of finalists. More information is available on EUIPO’s website here.

MARQUES Treasurer Uwe Over (pictured with EUIPO Executive Director João Negrão) attended the ceremony. He said: “The EUIPO DesignEuropa Awards ceremony held at an iconic design place in Copenhagen showed again the commercial importance and IP relevance of creativity resulting into tangible designs to the benefit of society. It was impressive to see extraordinary design examples supported by the strong willingness to respect such effort by granting efficient protection by all legal means. It was also encouraging to see all stakeholders acting hand in hand; a very strong initiative driven by the Executive Director of the EUIPO.”

Photos provided by EUIPO

The DesignEuropa Awards Ceremony takes place in the Black Diamond library in Copenhagen today (23 September), starting at 11.30 am (CEST).

The ceremony will be streamed online and you can watch it here.

This is the sixth edition of the awards, which celebrate remarkable designs and their creators. Previous ceremonies have been held in Milan, Warsaw, Eindhoven, Berlin and Riga.

This year, awards will be presented in the following categories: entrepreneurs and small companies; industry; and next-generation design.

The Lifetime Achievement Award has already been announced and will be presented to Hella Jongerius, the Dutch designer renowned for blending craftsmanship with industrial design.

EUIPO has published more information about the awards here.

MARQUES will be represented at the ceremony in Copenhagen by Uwe Over, Treasurer.

Preparations are underway for the 2026 DesignEuropa Awards: the call for applications will open on the EUIPO website before the end of this year.

The UK Intellectual Property Office has launched a consultation on modernising the country’s design protection system and strengthening the UK’s position on designs.

The consultation runs from 4 September to 27 November 2025 and can be accessed here. Responses are welcomed from design professionals across all sectors, legal professionals and other stakeholders.

Proposals in the consultation include:

• Streamlining processes including harmonising time limits and procedures across different types of design protection, consolidating the complex patchwork of unregistered designs and providing clearer guidance to increase accessibility to designs. Formal deferment provisions are also being considered.
• Fighting misuse of designs: search and examination powers to identify and reject designs that lack novelty or individual character, particularly targeting anti-competitive filings, as well as bad faith divisions.
• Resolving post-Brexit complexities and, in particular, options to address the legal uncertainty around disclosure and the creation of Supplementary Unregistered Design Rights.
• Strengthening enforcement options by exploring the creation of a small claims court track within the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court specifically for design disputes and criminal sanctions for unregistered design infringement.
• Modernising for the digital age by allowing applicants to submit new file formats such as video clips and CAD files when applying for design protection and updating legal definitions to ensure future industries and technologies can benefit from design protection. The government is also considering whether they should maintain the existing protection for computer-generated designs without a human author (which includes AI).

Launching the consultation, IP Minister Feryal Clark MP said: “These reforms will help remove barriers and make it easier for designers of all shapes and sizes to protect their creations – cementing our position as one of the world’s leading destinations for design investment and innovation.”

The MARQUES Designs Team is reviewing the consultation and MARQUES may submit a response. To find out more, please contact Sally Britton or another member of the Designs Team.

WIPO is hosting several webinars on the Hague System, which Class 99 readers may be interested in.

They are on various dates and are in English, French or Spanish.

The details are (all times are Geneva time):

Ask Us: Live Q&A with Hague Experts (English): 13 August, 4pm-5pm

Master Secure Tools to Manage and Share your International Registration and Transaction Portfolio in English, 20 August, 4pm-5pm; in French, 27 August, 10am-11am; and in Spanish, 3 September, 4pm-5pm

Locarno Classification: What you Need to Know in English, 10 September, 4pm-5pm; and in Spanish, 17 September, 4pm-5pm

You can find out more about these webinars and register for free on WIPO’s website here.

Hella Jongerius has been announced as the Lifetime Achievement Award Winner at the sixth edition of the DesignEuropa Awards.

Ms Jongerius, who was born in 1963 in the Netherlands, is described as “a pioneering designer known for her groundbreaking contributions to the fields of textiles, furniture, and industrial design”.

She founded Jongeriuslab in 1993 and has worked with brands such as Vitra, IDEA and KLM. She is known for designs including the Polder Sofa and Vitra Colour & Material Library.

Her work has been exhibited in museums including MoMA in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

According to EUIPO: “Through collaborations with leading companies and through her studio Jongeriuslab, she has redefined how materials, colour and form enrich both everyday objects and the environments they inhabit. Jongerius’ work continues to inspire designers and institutions alike, with her first major retrospective scheduled for 2026 at the Vitra Design Museum.”

You can read more about Ms Jongerius on EUIPO’s website here.

EUIPO has also announced the finalists in the Industry and Entrepreneurs and Small Companies categories. The Industry finalists are Bicinete, Mono and The Solar Trees. Apollo Wooden Wheelchairs, HANGY Maxi and Overade Life are the Entrepreneurs and Small Companies finalists.

The finalists were selected from 1,250 candidates from 48 countries. Designs were assessed by a jury for their originality, functionality, aesthetic value and sustainability. The jury is chaired by Christina Melander, President of the Bureau of European Design Associations and member of the Danish Design Centre.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Copenhagen on 23 September 2025.

Read more about the DesignEuropa Awards on EUIPO’s website here. The photo of Hella Jongerius is taken from the website.