The rights over the designs are recognized and protected on the Romanian territory by their registration under the conditions of the following normative acts:

– Design Law No 129/1992 withe the amendments published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No 242/04.IV.2014;
– G.D. No 211/2008 for the approval of the Implementing Regulations to the Design Law No 129/1992;
– Government Ordinance No 41/1998* on the fees in the industrial property protection field and the conditions for using the same, with the subsequent amndments and completions, with the amounts updated on 01.01.2021.

Under Art. 2, d) of the Design Law No 129/1992, as republished in 2014, a design is the appearance of a product or of a part thereof, in two or three dimensions, resulting from the combination of the main features, particularly lines, outlines, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation.

A product (under Art. 2, i) of the Design Law No 129/1992, as republished in 2014), can be any article produced through an industrial or handicraft process containing inter alia elements designed to be assembled in a complex product, packages, forms of presentation, arrangements, graphic symbols, typographic symbols. Computer programs shall not be deemed as a product.

Under Art. 2, j) of the Design Law No 129/1992, as republished in 2014, a complex product is a product comprising multiple elements replaceable in a manner which allows disassembly and reassembly of the product.

A design protects a new aesthetic aspect, while a trademark is a distinctive sign associated with products and / or services in order to differentiate them from other ones, identical or similar, existing on the market.

A design protects a new aesthetic aspect of a product, hence the product itself, while a utility model / invention refers to the technical characteristics of the product.

Filing an application for registration of a design (constituting the regular deposit) with OSIM gives the applicant a right of priority (Art. 15 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014), starting on the date of constituting the deposit, in relation to any subsequent deposit concerning the same design.

Starting with the date of publication of the design in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin - BOPI, Designs Section, the applicant shall benefit by a provisional protection, according to Art. 34 of the aforementioned law, up to the issuance of the registration certificate.

During the entire period of validity of the registration of designs, the owner shall have the exclusive right to use them and to prevent their use by a third party who does not have his consent (Art. 30 of the same law).

For the entire period of validity of the registration, according to Art. 30 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014, the owner has an exclusive right to use it and to prevent its use by a third party who does not have his consent. The owner has the right to prohibit third parties from performing the following acts:

• reproduction, manufacture, sale or offer for sale;
• the placing on the market, import, export or use of a product in which the design is incorporated or to which it applies;
• storing such a product for these purposes.

The scope of the protection is determined by the graphic representations of the registered designs. The protection of a design shall extend to any design that does not produce a different overall visual impression on an informed user.

The right to the issuance of the registration certificate, the rights arising from the application for registration, as well as the rights arising from the registration are transferable in whole or in part, by succession, by assignment or license.

Under Art.35 paragraph (1) of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014, the title of protection for a design shall have a duration of 10 years from the date of constituting the regular deposit and it may be renewed for 3 successive periods of 5 years each, subject to the payment of fees in the amount and within the time limits set out by the law.

Actually, any product on the market may be filed for registration as design: foodstuff, clothing and haberdashery, travel goods, boxes, umbrellas and personal items, brushes, woven textiles, synthetic or natural fiber materials , furniture, household articles, metal household articles and equipment, packaging and containers for the transport or storage and / or handling of goods, clocks and other measuring, control and signaling instruments, ornamental objects, means of transport and lifting, apparatuses for the production, distribution and transformation of electric energy, recording, telecommunication and information processing apparatus, photographic, cinematographic or optical articles, musical instruments, printing and office machines, stationery and office requisites, materials for artistic activities and teaching aids, equipment for sale and advertising, light signs, indicators , games, toys, tents and sport goods, weapons, pyrotechnic articles, articles for hunting, fishing or destroying pests, fluid distribution facilities, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning installations, solid fuels, medical equipment and laboratory, constructions and building elements, lighting fixtures, tobacco and smoking articles, pharmaceuticals or cosmetics, toilet articles and instruments, fire prevention and rescue devices and equipment, animal care and maintenance articles , food and beverage preparation machines and apparatuses.

The designs whose aspect is determined exclusively by a technical function, according to Art. 8 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014 and those which are contrary to public order or morality, according to Art. 9 of the same law, shall be excluded from protection.

A design which must be reproduced in the exact shape and dimensions in order to allow the product to perform its function, cannot be registered either.

In accordance with Art. 6 of the Design Law no. 129, as republished in 2014, the subject-matter of the application may be registered to the extent in which it constitutes a design, within the meaning of Article 2 of the same law, it is new and has an individual character.

A design shall be considered to be new if no identical design was rendered available to the public prior to the date of filing the application for registration or, if priority was claimed, before the priority date..

Designs are considered to be identical if their characteristic features differ only in insignificant detail.

A design shall be deemed to have individual character if the overall impression it produces on the informed user differs from the one produced on such a user by any design rendered available to the public prior to the date of filing the application for registration, or prior to the priority date, if priority was claimed.

If a design applied to or incorporated into a product constitutes a component of a complex product, it shall be considered new and individual only if the following conditions are cumulatively met:

a) the component, incorporated in the complex product, remains visible during its normal use;

b) the visible characteristics of the component themselves fulfill the conditions regarding the novelty and the individual character.

An application may request the protection of several designs by constituting a multiple deposit (Art. 14 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014), if they are intended to be incorporated in the same category of products, if they meet the condition of unity of design, unity of production and unity of use, or belong to the same set or composition of items.

The multiple deposit may include two to 100 designs, according to Art.15 paragraph 1 of the Implementing Regulations to the aforementioned law.

The application for registration of a design may be made by any natural or legal person entitled to the issuance of the registration certificate (author, trader, association, foundation), named applicant.

A Romanian natural or legal person may file a design directly or through a representative (authorized industrial property attorney).

For the foreign applicants, the services of such authorized representatives are compulsory, except for the submission of the application, according to Art. 13 paragraph 2 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014.

If you feel that you need specialized support to carry out your procedures, we recommend that you seek the assistance of an industrial property attorney. The list of these attorneys can be found on the OSIM website, under the heading “Industrial property attorneys”, in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin or on the website of the National Chamber of Industrial Property Attorneys: www.patent-chamber.ro.

The right to be granted the registration certificate shall vest in the author or his successor in title, for the designs created independently, in accordance with Art. 3 of Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014.

If several persons have created the same design, independently of each other, the right to be granted the certificate of registration shall vest in the person who first filed the application for registration with OSIM or, if a priority has been recognized, in the one whose application has the earliest priority date.

Where the design was created as a consequence of a contract with a creative mission or by employees, in the execution of their employment duties, the right to be granted the certificate shall vest in the person who commissioned the carrying out of the design.

For constituting the regular filing, in accordance with the Design Law No 129/92, as republished in 2014, you will be required to file the follwing documents with OSIM, Document Receiving Bureau, Room 2, ground floor:

• the standard form - Cerere de înregistrare a desenului/modelului – D 01(Application for Design Registration) accompanied by the graphic representations of the designs the protection of which is sought;

• the proof of payment of the filing fee.

For filling in the standard form, you have two possibilities:

A) online, by accessing "Online filing": Designs. In this case, before starting to fill in the form, you are supposed to pay the filing and publication fee, as in order to close the application and receive the filing number (application number) it is necessary to specify the number of the payment order  with which you paid said fees, scan it and add it to the file. Fees can be paid to the OSIM account (lei): RO05 TREZ 7032 0F33 5000 XXXX, Trezoreria Sector 3, Bucharest fiscal code: 4266081. Graphic representations of the design(s) must be in gif format.

B) by accessing the form in pdf format, either from the “Forms” section, or from. "Designs" section on the OSIM website; it must be filled in by printing or typing (not hand written), in Romanian, according to the guide on its last page, in 3 copies, so that one copy remains to the applicant, with the serial number assigned by the Registration Office. This form can be filed with OSIM directly at its headquarters, it can be sent by mail with acknowledgment of receipt or it can be filed by e-mail at depunericereriPI@osim.ro. 

In the form we need to fiind the following:
- a request for registration of the design;
- identification data of the applicant;
- the number of designs for which protection is sought;
- indication of the products in which the design is incorporated, if appropriate;
- description of the new elements, characteristic of the design for which the protection is requested, as they appear in the filed graphic representations;
- the names of the authors or a statement on the applicant’s responsibility that the authors have waived their right of being mentioned in the application and/or in the design publications;
- the signature of the applicant and, where applicable, the stamp of the company.

The graphic representations of the design, in 3 copies, need to be attached thereto, as well as the proof of payment of the filing and publication fees (copy of the fiscal invoice obtained from the OSIM cashier or copy of the payment order) in accordance with point 1 of the Annex no. 5 of G.O. No. 41/1998 on the fees in the industrial property protection field, as republished in 2006, with the amounts updated on 01.01.2021.

The application for registration may also contain, if appropriate, other elements that do not condition the date of the regular filing:

- identification data of the professional representative, if designated in the application for registration;
- power of attorney for representation before OSIM;
- priority documents, in case a registration or exhibition priority is claimed;
- request for deferment of publication, accompanied by the fee for this procedure;
- the statement indicating the information which, according to the applicant’s knowledge, allows to prove the fulfilment of the conditions to grant the protection for the design whose registration is claimed.

Graphic representations, made with drawing tools, on high quality paper or even photographs, must be of sufficient quality for all the details of the design to be highlighted and for publication to be possible.

Graphic representations must fully reproduce the design that is the subject of the application for registration, so that its aesthetic features are highlighted.In order to establish the optimal dimensions of the graphic representations, we recommend you to take into account the fees related to the publication procedure, fees mentioned in point 2 of Annex 5 of G. O. 41/1998, with the subsequent amendments and with the updated amounts starting with 01.01.2021, regarding both the choice of the black and white or color variant and the surface occupied by each of the graphic representations of the design to be protected. The unit area – which is the minimum as far as the publication procedure fees are concerned - is a square with a side of 6 x 6 cm, and the maximum area allowed for publication cannot exceed 18 x 24 cm.

If protection is requested for several designs, they will be numbered so that they can be distinguished, as graphic representations, and will be corroborated with the numbers of the descriptions written in box 9 on page 2 of the application form. Thus, the stand-alone representations of designs will be numbered in the order of the natural sequence of numbers, starting with 1, 2, 3,… and the the other representations of the same design with 1.1, 1.2, 1.3… if, for example, the design must be represented in 3 distinct views to understand its external appearance.

A copy of the representations will be placed on separate sheets to be considered as the original and will be signed, in the lower right corner, by the applicant, if a natural person, and in the case of a legal entity, next to the signature, the stamp of the company is supposed to be applied.

The filing of the registration application, with the related annexes, and the constituting of the regular deposit are followed by the preliminary examination stage, then the publication in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin, the Designs section, the substantive examination and the issuance of the registration certificate.

During the preliminary examination, OSIM shall verify the existence of the necessary documents for the publication procedure and the subsequent procedures, in accordance with the conditions provided in Art. 19 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014.

The application for registration of the design that meets the minimum filing conditions shall be published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin of OSIM, Designs Section, in electronic format, within 5 days of its submission to the Application Filing Bureau of OSIM, in black and white or, upon request, in color. This publication shall be made in accordance with Art. 1 of the OSIM Internal Order no. 81/2008.

The publication may be deferred, at the request of the applicant, for a period which may not exceed 30 months from the date of filing the application or from the date of the claimed priority, in accordance with Art. 20 paragraph 2 of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014.

Interested parties may oppose, in writing, to the registration of the design with OSIM within two months from the publication, for the reasons provided for in Art. 22, paragraph (3) of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014, for the following reasons:

• the application for registration does not refer to a design as defined by the aforementioned law;
• the design is not new or does not have an individual character;
• the design is determined exclusively by a technical function;
• the design requires reproduction in the exact shape and dimensions;
• the design is contrary to public order or morality;
• the design incorporates, without the consent of the owner, a work protected by Law no. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights, as subsequently amended and completed, or any other protected industrial property right or for which an application for protection has been filed;
• the applicant has not proved that he is the person entitled to the registration of the design, in the sense that he is its author or the person who ordered it.

OSIM notifies the applicant of the request of the formulated opposition and, within 2 months, he can present his point of view.

The oppositions shall be settled by a Board of the Design Division, within maximum 30 days from their filing to OSIM, observing the maximum time limit provided by Art. 21 (4) of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014, in accordance with Art. 3 of the OSIM Internal Order no. 81/2008. The Board shall issue a report admitting or rejecting the opposition, which shall be taken into account in the substantive examination.

Applications for design registration shall be examined by the Design Examination Board. The Board shall decide to register the design or refuse the design application, as the case may be, within 6 months from the date of filing the application, observing the time limit provided by Art. 22 (1) of the Design Law no. 129/1992, as republished in 2014, in accordance with the OSIM Internal Order no. 81/2008. In examining the application, the Board will consider the following:

• if the application for registration refers to a design as defined by the Design Law no. 129/1992 republished in 2007;
• if the design has novelty and an individual character;
• the design should not be determined exclusively by a technical function;
• the design should not require reproduction in the exact shape and dimensions;
• the design should not be contrary to public order or morality;
• the design should not incorporate, without the consent of the owner, a work protected by Law no. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights, with subsequent amendments and completions or any other protected industrial property right or for which a request for protection has been filed;
• the applicant must prove that he is the person entitled to the registration of the design, in the sense that he is its author or the person who ordered it.

In examining the application, consideration shall be given to the documentary sources existing in OSIM, international design registrations with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Community designs, and any other documents relevant to the examination procedures, submitted by interested persons.

Decisions made by OSIM regarding the applications for the registration of the design may be appealed against, in accordance with Art. 24 of the Design Law No 129/1992 as republished in 2014, in writing and on valid grounds, with OSIM, within 30 days from communication.

The appeal shall be examined within a maximal time limit of three months from its filing, by the Board of Appeal within the Appeal Department of OSIM. The parties may appear before the Board personally or they may be represented by a lawyer, a legal adviser or an authorized industrial property attorney.

The decision of the Board of Appeal shall be notified to the parties within 30 days from its pronouncement and it may be appealed against before the Law Court of Bucharest, within 30 days from said notification.

Final decisions of the Board of Appeal shall be published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin of OSIM within 60 days from pronouncement.

Registration of designs shall be made in the National Register of Designs and published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin of OSIM, Design Section.

The protection title granted by OSIM in respect of a design is the Certificate of Registration of the design.

Issuance of the certificates of registration of the designs shall be made by OSIM on the basis of the decisions of acceptance of design registration, within 30 days from the date on which the decision of acceptance became final and irrevocable.

The procedures in respect of the applications for registration of designs and the registration certificates are subject to fees, in the amounts and within the time limits provided by the law. The fees charged by OSIM for the protection of designs, according to G. O. 41/1998, on the fees in the industrial property protection field of and the conditions for using the same, as republished in 2006, with the subsequent amendments, with the updated amounts starting with 01.01.2021 are the following:

• The fee for filing the application for registration:
– for the first design: 148 lei;
– for each additional design: 49 lei.

• The fee for the publication of the design (paid within 5 days from constituting the regular filing):
– for each figure in standard space of 6/6 cm black and white: 99 lei;
– for each figure in standard space of 6/6 cm color: 495 lei;
– for the characteristic elements (every 30 words): 49 lei.

• The fee for examination of the application for registration (paid within one month of the publication of the design):
– for the first design: 247 lei;
– for each additional design: 49 lei.

• Fee for issuance of the registration certificate (paid within one month from the communication of the decision to admit registration):
– for 1 - 20 designs: 99 lei;
– for 21 - 50 designs: 148 lei;
– for 51 - 100 designs: 247 lei.

• The fee for the maintenance in force of the registration certificate, for each protection period of 5 years (paid in maximum one month from the communication of the admission decision for the first protection period of 5 years and until the beginning of the next 5 year period ):
– for 1 - 20 designs: 495 lei;
– for 21 - 50 designs: 618 lei;
– for 51 - 100 designs: 742 lei.

According to G. O. No. 41/1998 on the fees in the industrial property field with the subsequent amendments and the amounts updated on 01.01.2021, fee exemption shall be granted depending on their income or turnover, respectively, as follows:

• 50% of the amount for legal entities with a turnover of the previous financial year lower than the RON equivalent of 2 million euros;
• 50% of the amount for natural persons who also have the quality of author, if their average gross monthly income for the last 12 months, is less than 5 times the average gross monthly income per economy, as officially published in the last 12 months. To prove this eligibility limit, you will be required to file a certificate from the workplace, the financial administration, the employment office, or a pension receipts for the last 12 months, as the case may be, or for the students, a certificate issued by the faculty where they are enrolled, accompanied by a statement under your own responsibility, on a standard form, confirming that the income mentioned in the attached documents is your only income.

The fees regarding the registration of designs as well as the fees related to documentary search can be paid directly at the OSIM cashier or, by payment order, in the OSIM account - RO05 TREZ 7032 0F33 5000 XXXX, Trezoreria Sector 3, Bucharest; Fiscal code: 4266081.

In this case, you can obtain the invoice corresponding tothe payment order by requesting this from the Accounting Division of OSIM.

Documentary search in the field of designs is a service offered by OSIM regarding the previously registered designs and their holders. This service is offered subject to payment of a fee and it is conducting using the documentary sources existing in the Design Division. You need to file standard request form, addressed to OSIM, and to pay the due fee for this procedure. The search form can be obtained from the Public Relations Bureau or by accessing the section "OSIM Services in the field of Designs" on the OSIM website. The fees for documentary search are mentioned on the respective form.

Even if documentary search conducted before requesting the registration of a design, is not mandatory, it is advisable. Prior to the filing of the application for registration, in order to find out what is already registered or applied for registration in the field concerned and to see what chances you have to obtain the registration certificate, it is advisable to conduct a documentary search regarding novelty, in the documentary sources existing at the Design Division. It helps you avoid unwanted expenses and damages that should be paid in case of using an already protected design.

Any interested natural or legal person who files a standard design documentary search request form and pays the due fee corresponding to the type of research requested.

The formalities for conducting a documentary search are very simple. All you have to do is fill in the special form dedicated to documentary search services in the field of designs (must have the initials "DM" in the upper right corner), pay the appropriate fee and send the copy of the payment document, along with the filled-in form, to OSIM.

In order to support creators and producers, OSIM provides applicants with the following types of documentary search, conducted both in the national database and in international databases:

type 1 – anteriority search regarding the novelty for a single design;
type 2 - search for identifying an author’s or owner’s patrimony of designs registered (in Romania)
type 3 - search for preventing infringement (for a single industrial design)
type 4 - search concerning the legal status of the registration certificate of a design
type 5a - search for monitoring the competition for a period of 6 months
type 5b - search for monitoring the competition with prior documentary search - 6-month subscription.

The fees for documentary search depend on the type of search you are interested in and the timeframe for receiving the answer. On the second page of the documentary search form, there is a table which specifies the fees for each type of search are specified, correlated with the time limit for response.

In order to be able to monitor the situation of the applications and registrations of designs, the applicants / owners thereof, the changes in their legal status, the news in the field, we recommend you to follow the Official Bulletin of Industrial Property, Designs Section. This publication can be purchased, for a fee, from OSIM headquarters, monthly, or on a subscription basis. All information on BOPI is available on the OSIM website: www.osim.ro.

The publications published monthly by OSIM Publishing House, namely the Official Industrial Property Bulletins, Designs Section, in electronic format, are available accessing Publications.

These Bulletins can also be looked up at the OSIM Reading Hall, in electronic or paper format. The OSIM Reading Hall is equipped with computers, where users can search online databases (Romanian and foreign) and CDs, copies of the records in the BOPI Design Section can be made.

At the same time, users can access online the Register of filed applications the Register of designs on the OSIM website: www.osim.ro, Designs Section and the "e-OSIM" section.

No! The protection offered by the registration of a design with OSIM only refers to the national territory, namely to Romania.

Protection is territorial. This means that the protection of a design must be sought in each country or group of countries in which you have a commercial interest and you want protection.

Protection in other countries may be requested at any time, and the right of priority may be claimed within 6 months of the date on which you applied for protection in the first country.

One of the conditions for registering a design is the novelty. Disclosure, as an act of destruction of novelty, is not considered if the design for which protection is sought was made public within 12 months prior to the filing date of the application for registration or, if a priority has been claimed, to the date of priority (Art. 7, paragraph 2 letter b) of Design Law no. 129/1992, with subsequent amendments and completions). This way, you will have a maximum of 12 months from the date of your first filing in a State to apply for registration in the States where you have an interest in obtaining protection.atele unde aveţi interese în a obţine protecţia.

If you want to register a design in another State or in certain States, you can proceed in several ways, depending on their number (one or more) and their membership to various international conventions on the protection of designs:

• National route: you can apply to the national intellectual property office of each country, requesting separate protection in each State, similar to the registration with OSIM for the territory of Romania.

• Regional route: if the countries where you want to obtain protection are members of regional agreements that allow the registration of designs in several countries, then you can file a single application to the regional industrial property office (such as: Office Design Benelux, African Regional Industrial Property Office, European Union Intellectual Property Office - EUIPO, African Intellectual Property Organization).

• International route: if the countries where you want to obtain protection are members of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Designs, a convention administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, by a single application filed with WIPO you may request protection in those Member States of the system in which you are interested.

EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) is the official specialized body of the European Union with authority over the registration of Community trademarks and designs, conferring titles of protection with effect in all Member States of the European Union as a whole.

The Community design is the design protected under the conditions of Regulation no. 6/2002 / EC, published in the Official Journal of the European Communities L no. 3 / 05.01.2002, by the European Union Intellectual Property Office, with effect on the entire territory of the European Community.

Any natural or legal person may apply for registration of a Community design if he/she/it meets the following conditions:

• has the nationality of a Member State of the European Union, of a Member State of the Paris Convention or of the World Trade Organization;
• is domiciled, established or has an effective and serious industrial or commercial business in the territory of the European Union, in the territory of a Member State of the Paris Convention or of the World Trade Organization.

The application may be filed directly by the applicant or by an authorized representative. Lawyers who have the right to practice in the territory of one of the Member States or industrial property attorneys who are on the EUIPO list may be represent Romanian applicants. Industrial property attorneys must be certified by OSIM.

The application for registration of a Community design may be filed at the applicant’s choice:

• directly to EUIPO, by post or online;
• at the National Industrial Property Offices in the Member States of the European Union, in the case of Romania at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
• at the Benelux Office.

In the latter two cases, applications shall be submitted to EUIPO as well, within 2 weeks of the date of filing of the application.

A Community design shall be protected for an initial period of 5 years from the date of filing of the application for registration, with the possibility of extension for other periods of 5 years, up to a maximum of 25 years.

• Applying a single legal system for Community designs, providing uniform and strong protection throughout the European Union.

• Simplified formalities, by:

- a single application;
- one language of the deposit;
- a single administrative center;
- a single file to be administered;
- the possibility of filing the application electronically.

• Simplicity of procedures, as applications can be submitted both to the national industrial property offices and to EUIPO.

• Community exploitation of the conferred rights, since a Community design may be transferred to another person or licensed to another party.

• The exclusive right to use and to prohibit third parties from using a registered Community design without the consent of its owner.

• The right to take any legal action against those who infringe the design, including to claim damages, as a means of fighting potential counterfeiting.

• Extensive legal protection, accessible to all. Actions relating to a design may be brought before the Community Design Courts, which are national courts designated by the Member States of the European Union with jurisdiction over Community designs. The decisions taken by these courts are applicable throughout the European Union, and there is no need to open individual actions in each Member State.

• Possibility of filing a multiple deposit, a single application including an unlimited number of designs, if they are part of the same range of similar products (except for electronically submitted applications, in which case the number is limited to 99).

Under the Treaty of Accession of Romania to the European Union, from the date of accession, a Community design protected or applied for registration in accordance with the Community Regulation before the date of accession, extends to Romania to have the same effect throughout the European Community.

From a legal point of view, Community designs will coexist with national ones.

In the event of a conflict with a previously protected intellectual property right, invalidation of a design may be requested for infringement of rights in respect of a design previously registered in the Community or in Romania.

The request for invalidation of a design for non-fulfillment of the conditions for granting protection can be made to EUIPO, and the invalidation by way of a counterclaim in a counterfeiting action can be filed to the Community court established by the Member State (in Romania’ case, the Law Court of Bucharest shall settle such a request in the first instance).