The start of a new year often prompts a review of what worked (and what didn’t) in 2024, along with planning for 2025 to better protect your business. When this review focuses on IP assets, it typically emphasizes trademark and patent rights, which are vital to your business. However, this process—and IP strategies in Canada more broadly—often overlooks industrial designs, an equally valuable form of IP protection.

Statistics available through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) highlight the significant lag in filings for industrial designs compared to filings for patents or trademarks. For example, in the 2023-2024 fiscal year almost 40,000 patent applications and nearly 70,000 trademark applications were filed, in contrast to just under 9,000 industrial design applications[1].

Industrial designs are important business assets that can be used to obtain market exclusivity, and can be licensed, sold, or used as support for the valuation of your business. They are often overlooked due to lack of awareness on the following questions:

  1. What is an industrial design?
  2. How is an industrial design protected?
  3. How can an industrial design be used to protect my business?

Read on to learn more about these key points, and then ask yourself – Should you be protecting your industrial designs in Canada in 2025?

What is an industrial design?

An industrial design protects the unique appearance of your product, separate from what it is made of, the way it is manufactured, or how it functions. In Canada, an industrial design can protect the shape, configuration, pattern, or ornament (or combinations of these) found in your finished product. What is important is that the protection is afforded to that which is judged solely by its appearance – not how it functions or works.

It's easiest to think of an industrial design as protecting the novel visual elements of your product and what makes it stand out to a customer from a visual perspective. This could be its unique shape, its patterns, or any other cosmetic features. These are not only key selling features for your product, but also things that can be readily copied by your competitors if you do not protect them.

Importantly, an industrial design protects not only the exact design as registered, but also designs that do not ‘differ substantially’ from your design. It can therefore provide you with a scope of exclusivity.

How is an industrial design protected?

Industrial designs are protected by filing an Industrial Design Application with CIPO. Once the application is allowed or “registered,” the design owner will have the exclusive right to use that design in Canada.

The most important part of an industrial design application is the drawings. Through a series of drawings, the application sets out the unique features of the design and sets the scope of protection. Putting care into creating detailed drawings of the unique aspects of your product will pay dividends down the line.

An industrial design in Canada is very similar to a US Design Patent. If you are already filing applications for US Design Patents, you are 90% of the way to filing applications for Canadian industrial designs.

Industrial designs also provide a unique opportunity in Canada as they have much shorter turnaround times from filing to registration and are generally much faster to obtain than other IP rights in Canada. For example, the average time from filing the application to issuance/registration for patents and trademarks during the 2023-2024 period was roughly 31 months, while a registered industrial design could be obtained in half that time (averaging 15.5 months)[1].

Industrial designs, therefore, represent one of the fastest means of obtaining registered IP rights in Canada, enabling you to protect your product and enhance your IP portfolio with minimal delay.

How can I use my industrial design to protect my business?

Once you have an industrial design registered, you are provided with the exclusive right to use that design in Canada. This period of exclusivity is available for either 10 years from the date of design registration or 15 years from the filing of the design application, whichever is longer.

This exclusivity period provides you with a significant benefit over your competitors, and a means of countering copycat products from undercutting your sales. However, the obligation is on you to enforce the rights to your design. With a registered industrial design, you have several options to prevent competitors from copying the design of your product, including:

  • Sending cease & desist letters advising competitors of your industrial design rights, to obtain voluntary compliance to not sell their competing product, or to obtain a license to your industrial design in order to sell their competing product;
  • Submitting IP disputes with online retailers, seeking to have competitor products delisted from online purchase as a result of infringement of your industrial design; and
  • Commencing a court action against the competitor, seeking an injunction to prevent future sales as well as compensation for any sales lost (or competitor profits gained) as a result of infringement of your design.

The protection of your design is not limited to exact copycats of your figures. Some differences are permitted provided that the design of the infringing product does not ‘differ substantially’ from your design. Therefore, you can use a design to go after not only direct knockoffs of your product, but those that are copying your design with only minor adjustments.

A registered industrial design can be used to obtain a court injunction preventing future sales of that infringing product, as well as compensation from the infringer for any lost sales of your product or the profits the infringer has made. While a court action could be brought in any Canadian Court, the Federal Court of Canada is the most common due to its overall IP experience, and the fact that the resulting judgment is enforceable across Canada.

Hopefully this information allows you to properly consider if you are protecting your industrial designs in Canada, or if that is an area of focus for 2025. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have regarding filing industrial design applications or enforcing your design rights against competitors.

[1] 2023-2024 statistics from CIPO are available for patents, trademarks, and industrial designs.