The Role of Design Rights for Firms´ Intellectual Property Protection

Description

Design in general is inextricably bound to a product and market perspective, however design rights only start to matter in the academic literature. The literature until now has somewhat progressed in understanding as to which and why firms use design rights for protection. To much lesser extents there is an understanding of why firms choose not to register designs. This is a conceptual paper based on a literature review. We lay special emphasis if the current developments in digital technologies (i.e. AI and robotics) is likely to have effects on design registration dynamics. Factors influencing design protection dynamics are grouped into three layers, legal and institutional factors, technological and sectoral factors and firm-related factors. These shall inform the reader on why design rights are used and particularly also why they are not used. Overall, the paper shall shed light on the overall limited utilization of industrial designs as intellectual property rights.

Period	6 Jul 2021 → 8 Jul 2021
Event title	R&D Management Conference 2021 "Innovation in an Era of Disruption"
Event type	Other
Degree of Recognition	International