Keeping Hong Kong’s registered design system up to date with the modern world

In our previous blog posts here and here, we reported on the Hong Kong government’s efforts to update the Copyright Ordinance to align with the latest technological developments, especially in relation to artificial intelligence. This month, the government released a further public consultation to update the Registered Designs Ordinance (RDO) in view of global trends in design protection and to facilitate the development of Hong Kong as a regional IP trading centre.  

One of the key changes proposed is an amendment to the definition of design to allow for a wider scope of protectable subject matter. Under the current provisions of the RDO, design is restricted to four specific and exclusive features, namely shape, configuration, pattern or ornament. In some other jurisdictions, design is defined more broadly as “the appearance of the product resulting from the features of the product”. In addition to the four specific features recited in the RDO, under this broadened definition other design elements such as colours, lines and contours as well as texture may be captured (and such list of design features may be non-exhaustive). The government considers that such a definition is “closer and more intuitive to the common conception of a design”.

Such a revised definition for design has the potential to encompass digital and virtual designs that are only transient and not embodied in a physical form. In fact, in a number of other jurisdictions referred to in the consultation paper (including EU, UK, Chinese Mainland, Japan, Korea, and Singapore), it is possible to protect graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as a registered design (wherein either GUIs are registrable in their own right or as part of a digital product). Hence, there is a pressing need for Hong Kong to consider whether to allow protection of such digital designs, particularly in view of the market prevalence of consumer electronic products in the past few decades.

A related topic is the protection of partial design and spare parts. Under the current legislative scheme in Hong Kong, a design must be applied to an “article of manufacture” (which includes part of an article if that part is “made and sold separately”). Conversely, a partial design is not registerable if that part of the article (for which a design right is sought) is not traded independently in the commercial market. The consultation paper noted that such regime goes against the mainstream trend to accept protection for partial design in other jurisdictions such as the Chinese Mainland, the EU, Singapore and UK. While it is not explicitly mentioned in the consultation paper, the availability of partial design is indeed a huge benefit to entities seeking protection of GUIs since it removes the necessity of specifying a particular electronic product on which the GUI is displayed.

The consultation paper also raised an assortment of reform proposals, including questions and issues related to:

• the definition of an “article” and whether it should be replaced by the term “product”,
• the required level of novelty and the related examination procedures,
• expanding the current novelty grace period (in relation to both timeframe and scope),
• the scope of exclusive rights of registered designs,
• deferment of publication,
• various formalities issues in the design application and registration processes,
• the interplay between design rights and copyright,
• introduction of unregistered design rights, and
• accession to the Hague Agreement for the International Registration of Industrial Designs.

The consultation paper is an important step for Hong Kong to update and modernise its registered design system. The consultation period will end on 16 March 2026 and the public is encouraged to submit its views to the government.