ABSTRACT
The development of the protection of intellectual property was given a fillip when the 1839 Designs Registration Act provided protection for all ‘ornamental’ designs relating to applied arts. To apply for copyright protection, designers, or manufacturers submitted samples or illustrations of design to the newly created Designs Registry, part of the Board of Trade (Registrar of Designs for Articles of Manufacture). In 1842, the 1839 Act was repealed, and the Ornamental Designs Act of 1842 and the Utility Designs Act of 1843 superseded it. The first of these two acts divided the articles of manufacture into classes and afforded different periods of protection for each class, ranging from 9 months to 3 years. The second act gave protection to designs beyond the visual to incorporate functions as well. This inevitably created some clashes with patent registrations.
