Some Peculiarities of the Industrial Design Protection in Armenia.
1. Any solution defining the outward appearance of an article, which is novel and has an
individual character (conditions for protectability of an industrial design).
shall enjoy protection as an industrial design in accordance with the procedure established by
the Law.
2. A “Design” means the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from
the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the
product itself and/or its ornamentation.
3. A “Product” means any industrial or handicraft item, including, inter alia, parts
intended to be assembled into a complex item, packaging, get-up, graphic symbols and
typographic typefaces, but excluding computer programs. A “Complex product” means a
product which is composed of multiple components which can be replaced permitting
disassembly and reassembly of the product.
4. A component part of a complex product may be considered to be a protectable
industrial design:
(a) if the component part, once it has been incorporated into the complex product,
remains visible during normal use of the latter, and
(b) to the extent that those visible features of the component part fulfill in themselves the
protectable requirements as to novelty and individual character.
5. “Normal use” within the meaning of paragraph (4) (a) shall mean use by the end
user, excluding maintenance, servicing or repair work.
6. An industrial design shall be considered new if no identical design has been made
available to the public before the date of filing of the industrial design application or, if priority is
claimed, the date of priority. Designs shall be deemed to be identical if all their features coincide
or differ only in immaterial details.
7. An industrial design shall be considered to have individual character if the overall
impression it produces on the informed user differs from the overall impression produced on
such a user by any design which has been made available to the public before the date of filing
of the application for registration or, if priority is claimed, the date of priority.
8. In assessing individual character, the degree of freedom of the designer in
developing the design shall be taken into consideration.
9. An industrial design shall be deemed to have been made available to the public if it
has been published or disclosed by exhibition or sale before the date of filing of the application
to the Armenian Intellectual Property Agency (AIPA) or, if priority is claimed, the date of
priority.
10. Disclosure of the essence of industrial design shall not be taken into consideration if
it has been made by the designer (applicant), or a third person, who has directly or indirectly
obtained an information on the essence of industrial design from the designer (this fact should
be proved by the applicant), during the twelve month period preceding the date of filing of the
application or, if priority is claimed, the date of priority.
11. Paragraph (10) shall also apply if the industrial design has been made available to
the public as a consequence of an abuse in relation to the designer or his successor in title.
12. A design shall not be registered as an industrial design if:
(a) it is not a design within the meaning of paragraph (2) of this Article;
(b) it does not fulfill the requirements of paragraphs (1) or (4), or (6)-(8) of this Article, or
is in conflict with another industrial design protected in the Republic of Armenia and having an
earlier priority date;
(c) it conflicts with the requirements of Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the
Protection of Industrial Property, namely, it is filed without an authorization provided by the
relevant competent authority;
(d) it includes or imitates badges, emblems or escutcheons other than those covered by
Article 6ter of the Paris Convention and which are of particular public interest, unless the
consent of the competent authorities to its registration has been given;
(e) it is contrary to public order, humane principles or morality;
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(f) it is solely dictated by its technical function, namely, a design shall not be protected as
an industrial design, if its technical function is directly associated with an appearance of a
product;
g) it must necessarily be reproduced in its exact form and dimensions in order to permit
the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be mechanically
connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform
its function.
13. Except the cases provided in sub paragraph (12)(g) of this Article, a new industrial
design having an individual character may be protected, if it serves to provide with an
opportunity of multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a
modular system.
14. A certificate on registration of an industrial design shall be granted to a registered
industrial design (hereinafter, industrial design certificate). The industrial design certificate shall
be granted to the person on whose name the industrial design is registered (hereinafter, a right
holder of the industrial design).
15. The industrial design certificate confirms the fact of registration of an industrial
design, its priority, as well as the exclusive right to it.
16. The registered industrial design shall confer on its owner the exclusive right to use it
and to prevent any third party not having his consent from using it. The aforementioned use
shall cover, in particular, the making, offering, putting on the market, importing or using of a
product to which the design is applied, or stocking such a product for those purposes.
17. The scope of protection shall include any design which does not produce on the
informed user a different overall impression. In assessing the scope of protection, the degree of
freedom of the designer in developing the design shall be taken into consideration.
18. The rights under paragraph (16) shall be acquired as of the date of their entry in the
corresponding State Register.
19. The term of protection of an industrial design shall be one or more periods of five
years as from the date of filing of the application.
20. Subject to the payment of prescribed fees which shall be due, calculated from the
date of filing of the application, the right holder of an industrial design may renew its term of
validity for one or more periods of five years each, up to a total term of 25 years from the date
of filing of the application.
21. An industrial design application may cover several products, provided that they
belong to a single class of the international classification for Industrial Designs, except in cases
of ornamentation.
22. The application is drawn up in the Armenian language and shall contain:
(a) a request for the registration of an industrial design, stating the data concerning
the applicant (surname, forename and address, or firm and seat), an indication of the
product in which the industrial design may be incorporated or used, an index of the
International Classification for Industrial Designs;
(b) a photograph(s) or graphical representation(s) of the appearance of the whole or a
part of the product, or of the multiple products included in one application. The photograph or
graphical representation of the appearance of the whole or a part of the product shall clearly
show the novelty and the individual character of the appearance of the product for which
protection is sought.
(c) a document (Power of Attorney) confirming the authority of the patent attorney, if the
application is filed through him (see folder «Downloads»).
The photograph(s) or graphical representation(s) of the appearance of the whole or a
part of the product, or of the multiple products included in one application shall be submitted in
three copies.
The product (its breadboard model) shall be represented (pictured) on a neutral
background, without irrelevant objects.
An application for three dimensional industrial design shall contain the black-and-white
(if the color is not essential) representation of a product’s general front view in 3/4 perspective,
as well as, in case of need- left and right side, front and rear, top and bottom views and other
drawings.
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For two-dimensional (ornamental) designs their representations (if necessary color
representations), which should comprise a recurring motif of the ornamental design in plan shall
be provided.
For closable, foldable, transformable products (for instance, refrigerators, telephone
booths, caskets) the open, closed or transformed state views of these products shall be
represented.
The dimensions of representations depend on complexity of a product (however, the
size of the small side should be not less than 10 cm).
The photographs of large and complicated articles shall be in dimensions of 18X24 cm.
The small and simple articles (a cup, plate, bottle etc.) may be represented by
photographs in dimensions of 10X12 or 13X18 cm.
The photographs may be replaced by the other qualitative reproductions (for instance,
xerocopy or scanned copy).
23. An industrial design application shall be accompanied by a proof of payment of the
prescribed fee. A Priority Document (a certified copy of the first application), if priority is claimed,
shall be filed within three months from the filing date.
24. While filing the application, the applicant may request to defer a publication of the
application for twelve months from the date of filing of the application or, if a priority is claimed,
the date of priority. In the case of an application related to the appearances of multiple products,
a request for deferment of publication may relate to some of products.
25. Where the industrial design is two-dimensional, including a textile design or
hologram, and a request for deferment of publication is made in accordance with paragraph
(24), the application may, instead of containing a photograph or graphical representation of the
appearance of the whole or a part of the product, be accompanied by a specimen of that
product or the part thereof. The photograph or graphical representation of the product, in the
prescribed number of copies, shall be submitted no later than two months before the expiry of
the time limit for requested deferment of publication under paragraph (24). In the opposite case,
the application shall be deemed to be withdrawn.
26. The company starts performance of its duties immediately after receiving a Facsimile
(or scanned) copy of the signed and sealed Power of Attorney, the original of which should
be submitted to the AIPA within three months from the date of receiving of the relevant
notification.
The Power of Attorney should be signed and sealed by the applicant and sent to us
without any legalization. But note that if the Power of Attorney is signed and sealed only by the
authorized attorney on behalf of the applicant or signed by an applicant, who is a physical
person, or signed without corporate seal, such an authorization should be notarized.
Don't hesitate to contact us and discuss other details.
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