The Hague System: A useful tool for corporations and individual designers alike

By 2004 year end nearly 35,000 international design registrations were in force under the WIPO-administered Hague System for industrial designs. But unlike the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the Madrid System for international trademark applications, the Hague System did not break records last year. Rather, while four more countries joined the System, the total number of new registrations filed decreased. What does this mean? We take a look at what lies behind the statistics, and at the building blocks being put in place to create a spring-board for the Hague System.

Broadening the spread

The WIPO-administered, global IP registration systems all operate on the same basic principle, i.e. offering users a cost effective, streamlined procedure for protecting their IP simultaneously in any - or all - of the respective Member States. It follows that the greater the number of Member States, and the wider the geographical scope of a system, the more attractive that system becomes to users and potential users. The Hague System - with 42 Contracting States, predominantly within Europe - is the smallest of these three systems and has the most limited reach.

But membership is rising as WIPO works with partners to expand the geographical scope. The latest countries to join the Hague System include Croatia, Egypt, Hungary, Turkey, Niger and Latvia. Meanwhile, accession discussions are underway with South Africa, Portugal, Norway and the European Community.

The Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement, which came into operation in April 2004, also marked a significant step forward (see box). As well as increasing user-friendliness, the Geneva Act introduced improvements specifically designed to increase membership of the Hague System by making it more compatible with major, national registration systems. Not least, it enables the accession of intergovernmental organizations such as the 25-country European Community (EC) bloc and the 16-country African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI).

One System, three Acts

The Hague Agreement or Hague System comprises three independent Acts, the London Act (1934), the Hague Act (1960) and the Geneva Act (1999). The system was introduced to enable design owners to obtain protection in several States by means of a single...