"[...] The European Community meets the conditions to become party to the Geneva Act (1999) of the Hague Agreement, which entered into force on December 23, 2003.
Whereas the Community design system provides for a complete and unified regional designs registration system which covers the whole territory of the European Union, the 1999 Act constitutes a treaty centralizing, with the International Bureau of WIPO, the procedures for obtaining protection of industrial designs in the territory of the designated Contracting Parties. However, the substantive aspects of the protection regarding the assessment of the conditions of protection and the scope of that protection are entirely a matter of the legislation of each designated Contracting Party.
Therefore, both systems are complementary. The link between the Community design system and the 1999 Act implies that industry may make use of the Geneva Act to obtain Community designs at the same time as obtaining design protection in third States. In other words, participation of the European Community in the 1999 Act would allow for industrial design owners in the European Union to seek protection for their industrial designs in the European Union and in the territories of Contracting Parties to the 1999 Act outside the European Union through one single international application lodged at the International Bureau of WIPO.
To evaluate whether the Commission should initiate proposals to allow for accession of the European Community to the Geneva Act, the Commission would like to have the opinions and comments of the interested parties on the following questions:
[...] "
The modalities for responding to the questionnaire are published here.
Questionnaire on the impact of the accession of the European Community to the Hague Agreement on International Designs. Here is an excerpt from the paper:
