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Trademarks, patents, and design rights

Intellectual property protection comes in several forms. Understanding the differences helps you choose the right tool.

Trademark

Protects brand identifiers — words, logos, shapes — that distinguish your goods or services in the market. Duration is potentially indefinite, provided you renew every 10 years and continue using the mark.

Patent

Protects new inventions and technical innovations. Patents grant a time-limited monopoly (typically 20 years) in exchange for public disclosure of the invention.

Design right

Protects the visual appearance of a product — its shape, lines, colours, texture, or ornamentation. A registered design right in the EU lasts up to 25 years.

These protections are not mutually exclusive. A product can be simultaneously protected by all three — a registered shape as a trademark, its unique appearance as a design right, and its underlying mechanism as a patent.

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