Industrial Design Protection in Greece – Complete FAQ Guide

An industrial design is the externally visible appearance of all or part of an industrial or artisanal product, resulting from its particular features — such as lines, shapes, colours, etc. Protection may be granted for a wide range of products, including jewellery, clothing, footwear, bags, furniture and decorative items, packaging, buildings, and toys. Protection lasts five years, renewable in equal periods against payment of renewal fees, for a total of up to 25 years. After that, the design falls into the public domain — it becomes ‘common property’ and anyone is, in principle, entitled to copy it.
Read more: Registration of an Industrial Design — Basic Requirements and What Rihanna Taught Us

The fundamental conditions for protecting an industrial design are that it must be new (novelty) and have individual character. This means that, up to the date of filing the application for registration, no identical industrial design must have been made available to the public. Designs are considered identical when their features differ only in immaterial details. At the same time, the design must produce, on the informed user, an overall impression different from any prior design that has been made available to the public before the filing date. Individual character, in particular, frequently gives rise to complex legal issues — it involves an assessment that is strongly subjective and therefore open to competing interpretations.
Read more: Registration of an Industrial Design — Basic Requirements and What Rihanna Taught Us

Establishing whether the positive substantive requirements of novelty and individual character are met requires that a prior design which is identical or does not produce a different overall impression has been made available to the public in any way, anywhere in the world — not just within the European Union. A design is considered identical to a prior design when the latter includes all the features composing the former, or when their features differ only in immaterial details (Article 12(3) Presidential Decree 259/1997), meaning details that are not directly perceptible and therefore do not generate even negligible differences between the designs. Conversely, perceptible differences upon direct comparison establish novelty.
Read more: Novelty and Individual Character in Industrial Design Law

Assessment of the individual character of a design is multi-factorial and proceeds through four successive stages: first, identification of the product sector in which the design is to be incorporated; second, identification of the informed user; third, assessment of the designer’s degree of freedom; and fourth, comparison — as directly as possible — of the overall impressions produced. The informed user, according to EU case law, is either the end user or the professional buyer who uses the product in accordance with its intended purpose. Without being a designer or a technical expert, this user is aware of the various designs existing in the relevant sector and displays a relatively higher degree of attention.
Read more: Novelty and Individual Character in Industrial Design Law

Registration of a national design or model following submission of an application to the OBI (Industrial Property Organisation — in the national register of designs or models) constitutes an individual administrative act through which an absolute and exclusive right over a design — such as a bag, chair, or stuffed toy — is created and conferred on the applicant. At both national and Union level, the examiner conducts only a formal review of the applications submitted, which does not extend to examining whether the positive substantive requirements — namely novelty and individual character — are satisfied. This absence of prior examination is equally established by Regulation 6/2002 for Community designs.
Read more: The Procedure for Registering a National or Community Design and Best Practice

Under the applicable Community legislation, the holder of a Community design may prohibit the distribution of any product infringing their right throughout the EU, without needing to litigate in every Member State — it suffices for the relevant court order to be issued by the court where the infringer is based, or, if the infringer is based outside the EU, by the court where the rightholder is established. The prerequisite is that the company must first have registered its designs — preferably as Community designs, by filing an application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office in Alicante, Spain. The application is filed electronically and the fees per design are only EUR 350.
Read more: The Purpose of Registering a Community Design: Lessons from the IQOS Dispute

A Community design constitutes an intellectual property right that is less well known than others (patents, trade marks, etc.), and the law provides for two distinct forms: registered (application to the EUIPO, up to 25 years) and unregistered Community design. However, as underlined by Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance Decision 4946/2023, even where earlier designs are attributed the status of an ‘unregistered Community design,’ they enjoyed protection for only three years from the moment of their first disclosure (Article 11 of Regulation 6/2002). The contrast is clear: a registered design provides stronger, long-term, renewable protection, while the unregistered form constitutes a transitional solution for products with a short commercial lifecycle. Registration additionally equips the rightholder with a presumption of validity, enabling them to enforce their rights with greater effectiveness.
Read more: Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance Decision on Invalid Design

The design owner has the right to seek protection not only when their right is being infringed but also when such infringement is imminent — an application for interim measures (ασφαλιστικά μέτρα) is in this context the most direct procedural tool available. Given the urgent nature of such decisions, they can be ordered at an initial stage even without hearing the other party — the company allegedly infringing the registered Community design. In a representative case handled by the law firm, the court ordered the respondent to cease distributing the disputed bag without the applicant’s authorisation and to temporarily recall all copies of the disputed bag from the market.
Read more: Protection of a Registered Bag Design

The presumption of validity arising from registration of a design may be overturned by a court declaration of invalidity — inter alia on grounds of absence of novelty and individual character. The grounds of invalidity of a registered design or model may be raised by way of action (αγωγή), counterclaim (ανταγωγή), or even by way of defence/plea (ένσταση) against an action brought by the rightholder. In proceedings for infringement of a registered Community design, validity may be challenged only by way of a counterclaim for invalidity (Article 85(1) of Regulation 6/2002); an exception is introduced where validity is challenged in the context of proceedings for interim measures (Article 90).
Read more: The Procedure for Registering a National or Community Design and Best Practice

Failure to prove prior disclosure of a design on the internet is a common cause for the rejection of invalidity applications before the EUIPO Cancellation Division. The applicant must submit complete website screenshots showing the source URL and the date — the mere production of hyperlinks is insufficient. The Cancellation Division made this clear in Decisions 121525–121568: ‘Hyperlinks, per se, regardless of whether they are active or inactive, cannot be considered sufficient evidence of the design’s disclosure (CP10, April 2020).
Read more: EUIPO Cancellation Division Decisions Rejecting Applications for Invalidity of Industrial Designs

Under the applicable Community legislation, the holder of a Community design may prohibit the distribution of any product infringing their right throughout the entire EU, without the need to litigate in every Member State. It suffices for the relevant court order to be issued by the court where the infringer is established, or — if the infringer is based outside the EU — by the court where the rightholder has its registered office. In Greece, jurisdiction is vested exclusively in the specialised courts of Athens and Thessaloniki, where judges with expertise in Community design and EU trade marks sit, thereby providing consistent application of the law.
Read more: Interim Order of Athens Single-Member Court Prohibiting Distribution of Products Infringing a Community Design

In main proceedings, upholding an invalidity plea does not result in removal of the design from the register — it merely results in dismissal of the infringement action on the merits. Cancellation of the registration requires a counterclaim for invalidity — which constitutes, by express statutory provision, the exclusive procedural vehicle for that purpose. Illustrative is Athens Multi-Member Court Decision 806/2024, which declared invalid the national, Community, and international designs of the opposing party (all designs based on the meander/Greek key motif) for lack of novelty and individual character. Having accepted the second claim of the counterclaim, the court also cancelled the opponent’s registered EU composite trade mark, on the ground that it lacked distinctive character (Article 7(1)(a) and (b) of Regulation 2017/1001).
Read more: Athens Multi-Member Court Decision on Invalidation of an Industrial Design (Decision 806/2024)

Under Article 30 of Presidential Decree 259/1997, industrial designs and models may also benefit from copyright protection, provided they are original. This article establishes a system of ‘partial cumulative protection’ or ‘conditional protection’: in principle, the design rights system takes precedence; concurrently, and irrespective of whether registration exists, copyright protection also applies, provided originality is established. However, industrial designs can only in exceptional cases be found to possess the requisite creative height or statistical uniqueness — the aesthetically pleasing appearance of a product is not sufficient to confer originality.
Read more: Cumulation of Protection in the Context of Industrial Designs and Works of Applied Art

The most appropriate method of protecting a website design is registration as an industrial design — specifically as a Community design. It is uncontested that a website can qualify as a ‘design’ within the meaning of the relevant legislation. Once registration takes place (mandatorily within 12 months of the website’s publication on the internet), the rightholder is automatically entitled to seek protection against infringers before the courts — Greek or foreign — requesting, inter alia, cessation of infringement and an injunction against future infringement by removal of the identical website design. In parallel, in addition to protection under industrial design law, the law on unfair competition (Law 146/1914) may also apply.
Read more: A Simple Way to Protect Your Website Design

By way of exception, where the rightholder of an industrial design has itself disclosed the design (e.g. by placing the product on the market) prior to filing the declaration, a grace period of 12 months is granted within which the application must be filed. Only under this condition does prior publication not prejudice the novelty and individual character requirements, and consequently does not prevent registration. The grace period covers either disclosure made by the creator or their successor within the 12-month grace period prior to the filing date (Article 14(1)(a) Presidential Decree 259/1997), or disclosure resulting from conduct in breach of confidence towards the creator (Article 14(1)(b)).
Read more: Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance Decision on Invalid Design