Abstract

• Product designs can play a very important role in consumer choices as it affects this first encounter. Product design can be considered to be a subclass of Industrial design. It can be easily imitated because its nature is ornamental or aesthetic aspects of the article and display the public. So, it is needed to protect for the benefit of creators and consumer. The laws provide overlapping protection for non-functional or ornamental product designs but the nature and extent of such protections have led to some confusion among practitioners and scholars. Product designs can be protected by way of industrial design rights and/or trade dress rights. When trade dress is distinctive of the products of a particular manufacturer or merchant, it may be protected as a three dimensional mark or trade dress. The main purpose of trade dress protection of product design is to protect the consumer from accidentally purchasing products that are designed to imitate other products. The scope of the research is protection of industrial design under trademark law and unfair competition law. This paper clarifies the nature and extent of protection product design under trademark law and the appropriateness of this protection for lack of specific industrial design law.