What Is Industrial Property in Intellectual Property?

Industrial property is a key branch of intellectual property that protects innovations, distinctive signs, and design elements used in commercial environments. Understanding what is industrial property in intellectual property (and in particular how industrial designs fit into it) is essential if you want to protect your products and keep competitors from copying your work.

Understanding Industrial Property Rights

Under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, industrial property rights extend well beyond traditional manufacturing. If you are wondering what are industrial property rights in practice, it generally covers:

• Patents: protecting inventions and technical solutions
• Trademarks: safeguarding brand identifiers and commercial signs
• Industrial designs: protecting the visual and ornamental features of products
• Geographical indications: identifying products whose qualities are linked to a specific place

These intellectual property rights help businesses protect the “signs conveying information” about their goods or services, such as brand names, logos, product shapes, and distinctive visual designs. They prevent unauthorized use that could mislead consumers, dilute brand value, or unfairly exploit your reputation.

For a broader view of where industrial property sits within IP, see: Types of Intellectual Property Rights.

What Is an Industrial Design in IPR?

Within industrial property, industrial design protection is specifically aimed at the appearance of a product.

An industrial design in intellectual property rights protects the visual and ornamental aspects of a product or of a part of it that make it look new and distinctive in the market. It focuses on:

• Two-dimensional elements: lines, contours, patterns, colors
• Three-dimensional elements: shapes, textures, surface decoration, materials

In other words, industrial designs protect how something looks, not how it works. Technical or functional features of a product fall under patent law, not design law.

From the perspective of intellectual property rights, industrial design serves as a bridge between artistic creativity and commercial protection. It grants legal recognition and exclusive rights over the aesthetic features that attract customers and make your product stand out.

What Can Industrial Design Rights Protect?

The word “industrial” often leads people to think only of machines or factory equipment. In reality, industrial design rights can protect both artisanal and industrial products across almost any sector in which visual appeal influences consumer choice.

Some examples include:

Prints and Patterns

• Textile patterns used in fashion and apparel
• Stationery or packaging illustrations
• Surface decorations for paper goods, wallpaper, or gift wrap

Well-known fashion brands, such as Burberry, have registered their famous checks and prints in several jurisdictions. Stationery brands like Paperchase have design registrations for many original drawings applied across their product ranges.

Consumer and Lifestyle Products

• Furniture and home décor elements
• Kitchenware and tableware
• Personal care items and packaging
• Entertainment and leisure products

The design can cover the overall shape, the lines, the surface decoration, or a combination of these elements.

Machinery and Vehicles

• Small appliances: food processors, hair dryers, coffee machines
• Industrial equipment: baking machines, production line devices
• Vehicles: cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, tricycles

Here, it is not the mechanical function that is protected, but the distinctive appearance of the product or component.

Articles of Daily Life and Commercial Elements

• Lighting fixtures, architectural fittings and interior elements
• Product containers, bottles, jars and packaging designs
• Labels, tags and other point-of-sale materials

Individual parts that can be disassembled – such as a car bumper, a bottle cap, or a handle – may also be protected as industrial designs if they retain their distinctive visual character when separated from the main product.

Digital and Graphic Elements

In many jurisdictions, design protection can also extend to:

• Typefaces and font designs
• Icons and graphic symbols
• Screen layouts and user interface elements
• Digital display designs

These aspects are increasingly important in software, apps, and electronic devices, where visual experience is a core part of the product.

What Industrial Design Rights Do Not Protect

Industrial design protection does not cover everything related to a product. In general, it does not protect:

• Purely functional features whose appearance is dictated only by their technical purpose
• Colors, words, or sounds in isolation, unrelated to the ornamentation of a product (these may instead be protected as trademarks)
• Designs that go against public order or accepted moral standards

Industrial Design vs. Patent Protection: Key Differences

Choosing between industrial design and patent protection depends on what aspect of your product gives you a competitive edge. Both are powerful, but they protect and enforce different rights.

In practice:

• Industrial designs are ideal when your value lies in appearance — shape, silhouette, surface treatment, graphic style.
• Patents are suitable when the value lies in innovation — mechanisms, methods, structures, or processes.

Many successful products rely on both protections simultaneously: a patent to protect technological innovation, and an industrial design registration to protect the visual identity that consumers recognize.