Germany’s new design law protects animated designs and targets copies made by 3D printing

In future, designs that move or that exist only in digital form can explicitly be protected in Germany. The Act to modernise design law and amend the Act against Unfair Competition (Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Designrechts und zur Änderung des Gesetzes gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb) appeared in the Federal Law Gazette on 27 October 2026 (BGBl. 2026 I No. 322), after Federal President Steinmeier signed it on 22 October. Most of the changes take effect on 9 December 2027. The law transposes EU Directive 2024/2823 on the legal protection of designs, through which the EU is modernising and further harmonising its member states’ design law. The Federal Ministry of Justice says the directive is being implemented one to one.

What counts as a design

The Designs Act will define a design explicitly to include movement, transition and any other kind of animation of its features. A product will be any industrial or handicraft item, whether or not it takes physical form, including logos, surface patterns, typefaces, graphical user interfaces and spatial arrangements intended to form an interior or exterior. Computer programs remain excluded.

Applications to the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) change too. A design may be shown in static, dynamic or animated form: up to 20 static views are allowed, plus one dynamic or animated one. According to the ministry, the simpler procedures are meant above all to help individual applicants and small and medium-sized enterprises. The owner of a registered design may put the new symbol Ⓓ on the product, optionally with the design number or a link to the register entry. The federal government compares it with © in copyright and ® in trade mark law.

More tools against counterfeiting

Two new rules are aimed at counterfeiters. A rights holder’s right to prohibit use will also cover creating, downloading, copying and sharing or distributing any media or software that records the design in order to make a product with it. This targets templates for 3D printing. In addition, the owner can stop goods from outside the EU that bear the design from being brought into Germany without being released for free circulation, for example in transit. That right lapses if the declarant or holder of the goods proves in customs proceedings that the rights holder cannot prohibit their sale in the country of final destination.

There are also new exceptions. Design rights cannot be enforced against acts that identify a product as that of the rights holder or that refer to the design, nor against comment, criticism or parody. Both apply only where the use is in line with honest commercial practice and does not unduly harm the normal exploitation of the design.

Spare parts: repair clause extended to older designs

A transitional rule matters for the spare-parts trade. Under the repair clause, there is no design protection for a component part of a complex product whose appearance the design depends on, if the part is used solely to repair the product and restore its original appearance. Manufacturers and sellers of such parts can rely on the clause only if they clearly and visibly tell consumers about the part’s commercial origin and its maker. At present the clause does not apply to designs filed before 2 December 2020. For those designs it will now apply from 9 December 2032. A registered design can be protected for up to 25 years from filing. According to the explanatory memorandum to the government bill, protection for these older designs can therefore run until 1 December 2045 at the latest; without the new rule, the repair clause would not have applied to them for all that time.

Transitional rule for environmental claims

The second part of the law concerns competition law. Since 27 September 2026, the rules of the Third Act amending the Act against Unfair Competition have applied. For goods placed on the market before that date, a new section 15b, in force with effect from the same day, requires that claims over statements on matters such as durability, reparability or recyclability be pursued only in good faith and in proportion. The seriousness of the breach, the company’s efforts to put it right, the cost of doing so and the environmental burden involved must be weighed. According to the law, the rule serves to implement EU Directive 2024/825, which is meant to better protect consumers against unfair practices in the green transition. The special rule lapses on 27 September 2028.

Fewer applications in 2025

Demand for national design protection has eased slightly. The DPMA received applications for 29,687 designs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than a year earlier. The number of designs in force fell by 4.8% to 226,690. Furniture accounted for the most registrations.