Design Registration OAPI

Design registration in OAPI

Here you can mandate us to obtain design protection in OAPI. We will prepare and file your design application in OAPI and inform you about the progress of proceeding.

The design of a product is one of the decisive factors for its market success. It can become an important asset of your company, particularly if it is a bestseller. We protect your design and file a request for a registered industrial design in OAPIon. Our offer includes the fees of the patent office for registration, publication and registration.

OAPI is the name for the Organisation Africain de la Propriete Intellectuelle which offers design protection in all of its member states. These states are:

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Tchad, Congo, Comoren, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea – Conakry, Guinea – Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Equatorial Guinea.

The issuance of a regsitered design certificate by the OAPI will automatically gives rise to rights valid in all Member States of OAPI.

A registered design right in OAPI will be established through a registration.

The maximum term of protection in OAPI is 15 years provided the registration is renewed 2 times for periods of 5 years each.

The first term of design protection in OAPI will be five years calculated from the date of filing. In certain cases the date of filing starts 6 months before the actual application date, namely if an application for an industrial design was filed before in a foreign country but not longer than 6 months before the application in OAPI and if the priority of this foreign application date for the new application in OAPI was claimed.

The registered design in OAPI is an unexamined industrial property right. Neither the office nor we will examine the novelty and individual characteristic of your design.

For the registration of a design in OAPI you need:

- the name of your design: (f.e. car fender „ALKU“, Artikel.-No.1234);

- drawings, photographs or other adequate graphic representations of the article embodying the industrial design only; views shall show your design in front of a neutral background, please provide us with black and white pictures or technical drawings reduced to the lines of the design without any further technical information that show the design views from all possible directions (bottom, top, left, right view etc.); please note that the protection will rest on what can be seen in the views only.

- contact details of the client;

- contact details of the to be registered owner of the design right and

- if the registered owner shall be a juristical person we need a copy of the commercial register;

- name of the natural person(s) who created the design; where the applicant is not the creator the request shall be accompanied by a statement justifying the right of the applicant to the registration of the industrial design.

- a short description - if possible - of the product/design, especially if the design has specific characteristics which can not to be seen in the views;

- in case of prior design application in a foreign country please provide a copy of the office letter stating the receipt of the filing, file number and name of the patent office.

If you engage us we will render the following services :

request destruction of the products concerned. Furthermore, you are basically entitled to claim damages.