Class 46 has learned that the Common Communication for the CP6 project on Graphical representation of a Design --- the first Common Communication in the area of designs -- is now coming to fruition. According to information received:

The Common Communication on CP6 has been simultaneously published on the website of all implementing offices on 15 April 2016. It offers users and interested IP Offices access to the Common Practice in its entirety and complementary information, such as the precise implementation dates for each implementing EU IP Office and a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

The project’s Working Group is composed of twenty-three participating IP Offices, five observers, two User Associations and the EUIPO.

These efforts support transparency, legal certainty and predictability in how to use, appropriate disclaimers, types of views and how to represent designs on a neutral background. As additional information for users, the Common Communication also includes an overview of the Offices’ quality standards for design applications received by electronic means and by paper. 

This Common Practice is the first milestone in the harmonisation of designs practices and is most certainly the beginning of a continuous collaboration between the IP Offices in the field of designs.

EUIPO’s Academy will announce a webinar on the CP6 common practice in due course (expected in the month of May).

This information is also being posted on the Class 99 design law blog but, givren its importance and also recognising the extent to which design and trade mark law interface or overlap with one another, it was felt necessary to post it here too.