In a legal sense, an industrial design constitutes the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of an article or product. An industrial design may consist of three-dimensional features, such as the shape of an article, or two-dimensional features, such as patterns, lines or colour. In principle, the owner of a registered industrial design or of a design patent has the right to prevent third parties from making, selling or importing articles or product bearing or embodying a design, which is a copy, or substantially a copy, of the protected design, when such acts are undertaken for commercial purposes. The proprietor of a new or original design shall have the right to apply for registration of the said design under the Patents and Design Act 1911. While this is also called copyright, it is different from the copyright conferred under the Copyright Act 2000

When a design is registered, the proprietor of the design shall, subject to the provision of the Act, have exclusive copyright in the design.

There is a provision for priority application in Bangladesh. In this respect the applicant for registration of an industrial design who desires to avail himself of the priority of an earlier application filed in a convention country shall, within six months of the date of such earlier application, append to his application a written declaration indicating the date and number of the earlier application, the name of the applicant and the country in which he or his predecessor in title filed such application and shall, within a period of three months from the date of the later application filed in Bangladesh, furnish a copy of the earlier application certified as correct by the appropriate authority of the country where such application was filed earlier.

Registration Procedure of a Design in Bangladesh:

(A) Application:

An application for the registration of industrial design should be made in the prescribed form either 15 or 16 or 17. If the design is to be applied to any single article, the application should be made on form-15, but if it is intended to be applied to a number of articles of the same general character, comprising a set, it should be made on form-17, if it is intended to claim priority the application should be made on form-16. If the applicant claims the right of priority of an earlier application filed in another country which is a party to Paris convention he/she is required to file his/her application within a period of six months from the date of the first application and to append to his application a written declaration to the effect that the claim of priority, indicating certain details regarding the earlier application, and to furnish a certified copy of the earlier application.

(B) Representation:

Application on the prescribed form shall be accompanied by exactly similar four copies of representation of the article clearly showing the features of the design by different views and stating names of the views. The representation may contain drawing or photographs or specimens of the design where applicable.

(C) Power of Attorney:

If the applicant does not want to file his/her application in a person, then he/she will have to submit Power of Attorney.

(D) Requisite fee:

The fee payable for any class as per the fee schedule. The fee may be paid by way of pay order/cheque in favour of Registrar, DPDT.

(E) Statement of Novelty:

The applicant should endorse the application and each of the representations a brief statement of the novelty for which he/she seeks protection. This may be done when he/she files the application or at any time before registration is finally effectuated.

(F) Endorsement of disclaimers:

Statement of the novelty will contain a disclaimer to the effect that no right is claimed over the use of Trademarks, any mechanism, letters, words, numbers etc.