The Hague System was established out of the need for simplification and economy. The system enables the owner of a design in a Contracting Party to effectively obtain protection for his or her design abroad with the simplest procedures and at the lowest cost.
Under the Hague System, no prior national application or registration is required when filing an international application. Instead, an international registration is obtained by submitting a formal application form to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization or through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Hague electronic filing interface, using one currency, the Swiss franc, and one language (English, French or Spanish). This will take effect in one or more designated Contracting Parties, thereby applying for protection of industrial designs at the international level. A foreign agent is only required if the design application is rejected in the designated Contracting Party.
The initial protection period obtained by an international registration is five years. When it is necessary to renew or further limit the registered design in all or some of the Contracting Parties, an application is only required to be submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization through electronic or paper forms (which must be submitted to the International Bureau). In addition, the Hague System allows a single application to contain up to 100 different designs, as long as these designs belong to the same major class of the international classification (Locarno Classification). The Hague Agreement allows applicants to submit a single application to the International Bureau of WIPO to register an industrial design, enabling design owners to protect their designs in multiple countries or regions with minimal formalities. The Hague Agreement simplifies the management of industrial design registrations by allowing subsequent changes and renewals of international registrations to be recorded through a single procedure.
Currently, two texts of the Agreement are in force – the 1999 text and the 1960 text. It depends on the Contracting Party with which the applicant has the above-mentioned connection (hereinafter referred to as the “country of origin”). International design applications can be submitted directly to the International Bureau of WIPO, or, where the law of the Contracting Party permits or requires it, through the industrial property office of that Contracting Party. In practice, however, almost all international applications are submitted directly to the International Bureau, and most of them are submitted through the electronic application interface on the WIPO website.