India Adopts the Riyadh Design Law Treaty

India signed the final draft of the Design Law Treaty (DLT) in November 2024. The treaty was negotiated in Riyadh by members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

This is a positive shift from India’s long-standing stance of non-engagement with international IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) accords. By signing the treaty, India has reaffirmed its position as a leader in Intellectual Property Rights, championing equitable access to such protections. Over the past decade, design registrations in India have tripled, with domestic filings increasing by 120% in the last two years alone. Notably, design applications grew by 25% last year.

The treaty aims to standardise the procedural frameworks for Industrial Design protection in order to increase the effectiveness and accessibility of registration procedures across several countries. Global design inventiveness is encouraged by the DLT’s reduction of administrative burdens through the standardisation of procedural criteria. Its objective is to guarantee that all parties involved can benefit from simplified design protection, with a focus on independent designers, startups, and small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). The treaty also encourages contracting parties to work towards implementing electronic industrial design systems and facilitating the electronic exchange of priority documents.

In the Indian context, the DLT’s propensity to preserve traditional knowledge (TK) is among its most important features. The DLT allows contractual parties to request that applicants submit data on traditional cultural manifestations and traditional knowledge pertinent to the design’s eligibility for registration.

Further, the DLT allows countries to decide whether to protect partial designs, giving them more flexibility in framing the provision according to their national policies. Following the first disclosure of the design, a 12-month grace period has been inserted, during which such disclosure will not affect its validity for registration.

The DLT has enough flexibility to address India’s concerns about the cost of non-compliance and the burden of compliance. It offers a grace period that permits applicants to pursue design protection even after their designs have been made public and to ask the IP Office to postpone the publication of their designs.

However, there is currently no delay of publication under Indian law, and the grace time that is permitted under our legislation is likewise narrowly defined, meaning that it does not provide complete protection. India would not be required to enact any such measures, such as a general grace period or a postponement of publishing, should it decide not to adopt them, as the DLT allows contractual parties to express objections about these aspects.

Given the non-binding nature of clauses like the grace period and deferment of publication, India has carefully signed the DLT and can still exercise its right to make reservations when necessary. This allows India to benefit from its provisions that make it easier to file, assign, and record licenses.