Designing for the European Green Deal - a supplementary protection regime for circular designs in the EU

This chapter examines the existing industrial design regime in light of the principles of the circular economy embodied in the EU’s EcoDesign legislation. The chapter considers ways in which design law may play a proactive role in moving towards a circular economy and investigates what modifications and rebalancing of interests may be required towards this goal. Two essential aspects of the sui generis EU design law are addressed: whether the definition of the ‘object of protection’ is sufficiently capacious to include circular features and whether social considerations may justify a rebalancing in favour of enhanced access. In response to the latter question, we propose a supplementary design law regime tailored to the needs of the circular economy. Its main doctrinal sources include scholarly literature on liability rules and the European unregistered design system. A variety of existing circular business models may be reinforced by the supplementary protection regime proposed.