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Articles
Thailand’s Patent Design Database has been made available to the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s DesignView Search Tool
Section 3 and Section 56 of the Patent Act B. E. 2522 (1979), as amended by Patent Act (No.2) B. E. 2535 (1992) and Patent Act (No.3) B. E. 2542 (1999) (the “Act”) provide as follows:
Section 3 of the Act states that ‘design’ means: “any form or composition of lines or colours which gives a special appearance to a product, and can serve as a pattern for a product of industry or handicraft”; and
Section 56 of the Act provides that: “a patent may be granted under this Act for a new design for a product of industry, including handicrafts”.
Therefore, the design to be registered in Thailand must be novel by virtue of Section 56 of the Act. A patentable design in Thailand includes an industrial and/or handicraft design with a special ‘appearance’, including but not limited to shape, pattern and/or colours.
Furthermore, Clause 19 of Ministerial regulations No. 21 B.E. 2542 (1999) issued under the Act provides that: “the representation may consist of photographs or drawings that show all features of the product for which protection is sought. The representation shall be in black and white but if the design is in colour, the representation shall also be in colour”.
Section 57 of the Act provides as follows: “The following designs are not new:
- (1) a design which was widely known or used by others in Thailand before the filing of the application for a patent;
- (2) a design which was disclosed or described in a document, or a printed publication in this or a foreign country before the filing of the application for a patent;
- (3) a design which was published under Section 65 and Section 28 of the Act before the filing of the application for a patent; and
- (4) any design resembling any of the designs prescribed in (1), (2) or (3) so closely as to be considered an imitation”.
Consequently, a patentable design shall be represented as photographs or drawings, and considered novel under Section 56 and Section 57 of the Act. Nowadays, the novelty of a design is imperative for its registration in the majority of countries globally. Accordingly, the applicant should have knowledge of existing designs around the world before deciding to file a design application in Thailand. On 7 December 2023, Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (“DIP”) made its design database - containing more than 74,000 designs - available to “DesignView”. DesignView provides access to the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s (“EUIPO”) database of registered designs, along with the databases of other national registries , thus giving access to more than 21.1 million designs worldwide from 77 design databases of participating IP offices.
Two major benefits of the DIP database integration onto the DesignView database are as follows:
- 1) It facilitates the search for existing designs globally for an international and domestic design applicant. In turn, this increases successful registration rate of design application in Thailand because the applicant is able to estimate the novelty of its design compared to designs which appear in the said database before deciding to file a design application in Thailand.
- 2) It helps a designer or new applicant, as a new player in the particular design industry, create and protect new designs and creative ideas that are not identical or similar to those existing designs in the DesignView database; through submission of the design application in Thailand and other related countries, as well avoid design infringement.
Should you have any inquiries or queries on patent design registration in Thailand and/or worldwide, please do not hesitate to contact us at SCL Nishimura & Asahi, Bangkok Office.
Authors
Pradipol KRUAKAEW
- Associate
- Bangkok
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Narongcachon joined the firm in 2012 as a member of our Intellectual Property Practice Group. While in the IP department, he has conducted patent prosecution, advising relating to intellectual property matters, conducting patent searches and providing analysis and draft opinions based on the analysis. He is also very hands-on with giving advice on the patentability of an invention, infringement and opposition. He has extensive technical experience in preparing patent specifications, preparing and reviewing design drawings and descriptions, as well as preparing and filing patent, design and utility model applications and responses to office actions with the Thai Patent Office. He is also active in intellectual property and information technology court matters, as well as providing legal advice on emerging legal issues. Previously, Narongcachon worked in the telecommunications industry as a Technical Service Engineer and Service Manager, in the fields of telecommunications and data network technologies, with Siemens Limited Thailand, Siemens AG (Germany) and Nokia Siemens Networks (Thailand) Ltd. As a result, he has high technical expertise in telecommunications and data networks. With a long working history in the telecommunications industry and his academic background in engineering, Master of Business Administration (MBA) and related laws, he is a technical/business minded lawyer and is well attuned to legal developments in the intellectual property, telecommunication and information technology industries.