for the several changes of the appearance
of the icon designs during the show of
use of the drawing.
In the original provisions, it is stipu-
lated that when filing new design patent
applications, the appearance of each ob-
ject shall be filed for, i.e. "an application
for each design." However, when design
industries are developing products,
they often develop an entire creation for
several objects that are often sold or used
at the same time to achieve a design that
can produce an overall special
visual effect after the
combination of the
several objects.
As such, in the
new Patent
Act,
that two or
more objects
that are classi-
fied as the same
type and that
are often sold or
used in a group, like
spoons and forks or
teapots and cups may be
filed for one patent application
as a "group design" to protect the design
of the overall visual effects of the group.
However, when exercising the rights of
the design, the group design can merely
be regarded as one design; the rights of
each component of the group design can-
not be exercised alone.
Furthermore, when developing new
products, industries usually develop
several similar product designs based
on the same design concept, or develop
the same product. In order to take into
consideration similar designs developed
based on the same design concept or
due to improvements of the same prod-
uct, which have the same value as the
original design and thus shall be granted
the same protection, the new Patent Act
stipulates that when an applicant has two
or more similar designs, the designs shall
not be limited to the "first to file" condi-
tion, and the design after the second one
may be filed as a "derivative design"
Compared to the "associated new
design patent" of the original Patent
Act, the deadline for filing a "derivative
design" patent application is limited to
when the applicant of the original design
has filed a patent application (including
the day that the patent application was
filed) or before the patent examination of
the original design. However, after the
applicant of the derivative design obtains
the patent rights, he/she may exercise
sign shall not be classified as the original
design and its effect shall be extended to
the scope of similarity, thus the range of
derivative designs is more independent
and wider than the range of the original
"associated new design patent."
Since the related provisions for filing
"partial design," "icon design," "group
design" and "derivative design" patent
applications were implemented on Janu-
ary 1, 2013; therefore the applications
filed for "partial design," "icon design,"
"group design" and "derivative design"
patents before January 1, 2013, could
file for "icon design" and "group design"
patent applications after January 1, 2013
and that claim priority rights is earlier
than the implementation date of the
amendment of the Patent Act, which is
January 1, 2013, the priority date shall
be January 1, 2013.