The registration process in Croatia

If you want to protect the appearance of your product by an industrial design as one of the forms of intellectual property, a corresponding registration procedure shall be carried out before the Office. The protection requirements and the whole procedure to be carried out in respect of the industrial design application are prescribed by the Industrial Design Act and the Regulations on Industrial Designs. The application shall be filed on the D-1 and D-2 Forms.

With regard to the fact that one of the main requirements for the protection of an industrial design is its novelty, the registration procedure is to be initiated before the product has been put into circulation or before the design, which is the subject matter of protection has been made available to the public otherwise.

The registration procedure is initiated by filing a corresponding application, which may be a single one (for one design) or a multiple one (for several different designs). A requirement for filing a multiple application is that all the designs contained in the application must relate to the products classified under a single class of the International Classification for Industrial Designs. The application has to contain, in addition to the indications concerning the applicant, the designer and other prescribed indications, a photography or a graphical representation of a design to be protected. After filing a correct application, that is, after carrying out a formal examination, the Office carries out a prescribed procedure of examination of the requirements for the industrial design protection. If all the prescribed requirements for the registration are complied with, a decision on the registration of the industrial design is issued and the data concerning the industrial design are published in the Office official gazette.