A design registration protects the way a product looks — its shape, its pattern, its ornamentation — and nothing about how it works.
That distinction is the whole of it. If the value is in what the article does, you want a patent. If the value is in what it looks like — the silhouette of a bottle, the tread pattern on a sole, the profile of a chair — you want a design registration. It is the cheapest and fastest of the industrial rights, and the most frequently overlooked.
Any rupee amounts shown are the government (official) fees payable to the Design Office at Kolkata. Unlike patents and trade marks, the Designs Rules set one fee per category — there is no separate cheaper rate for e-filing.
Any amounts shown on this page are official government fees only — the statutory charges payable to the Design Office. They are not the cost of the work.
Professional fees for the searching, drawing, filing and replying at each stage are charged separately and in addition. Please get in touch for a quote for your article.
The Designs Act protects features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours, applied to an article, and judged solely by the eye. That phrase does real work: it means the appeal has to be visual, not functional.
Certain things are therefore outside the Act altogether. A mode or principle of construction is excluded. So is anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device. So are trade marks, property marks and artistic works — those are protected under their own statutes.
We search the register of designs for the class of article you are filing in, to see what shapes and patterns are already registered. The Act also allows anyone to request information about a registered design formally, which is useful when you need certainty about a competitor’s rights rather than an informal view.
The article is classified under the Locarno Classification, and one application covers one design applied to one article in one class. The representations — the drawings or photographs — are the heart of the application, because they define the scope of what you own. Typically you file perspective, front, back, top, bottom and both side views.
Two details do most of the damage when they are got wrong. Any view that shows features you are not claiming should show them in dotted lines. And no dimension, no construction line and no descriptive text should appear on the representations at all.
The application goes in on Form 1 with the representations, the class of article, and a statement of novelty saying precisely what is new — the shape, the surface pattern, the ornamentation, or a combination. A disclaimer is added for anything shown but not claimed.
To claim the lower fee as a startup or small entity, the DPIIT recognition certificate or the Udyam registration must be filed with the application on Form 24.
The Design Office examines the application for novelty and originality, for whether the subject matter is a design at all, for the adequacy of the representations, and for classification. Where it is not satisfied it issues a statement of objections.
Most objections in practice are about the drawings — inconsistent views, dimensions left on the sheets, or a statement of novelty that claims more than the representations actually show.
You have three months from the statement of objections to reply, and the application must be put in order for registration within six months of the filing date. That outer limit can be extended, but only on a request made before it expires, and the extension is paid for by the month.
If the objections cannot be resolved on paper, a hearing may be requested before the Controller decides.
Once accepted, the design is entered in the Register of Designs, a certificate issues, and the design is published in the Patent Office Journal. Copyright in the design — the exclusive right to apply it to the article — runs for ten years from the date of registration, or from the priority date where one is claimed.
From this point the design may be marked as registered, and piracy of a registered design can be sued on.
The term can be extended once, by five years, on Form 3. The application to extend has to be made before the initial ten years expire — there is no extending it afterwards. Fifteen years is the maximum life of a registered design in India; unlike a trademark, it cannot be renewed indefinitely.
If the extension is missed, a lapsed design can be restored on Form 4 within one year of the lapse, on payment of both the restoration fee and an additional fee.
Government fees only. Currently showing: Natural person, Startup or Small Entity. The Designs Rules set one fee per category — there is no separate e-filing rate.
| Stage | Fee |
|---|---|
| Design search | Nil |
| Representations and drawings | Nil |
| Filing the applicationForm 1 | ₹1,000 |
| Examination and reply | Nil |
| Extension of time (if needed)Form 18 · per month | ₹200 |
| Registration and publication | Nil |
| Typical total to registrationOne design, one article, no extensions | ₹1,000 |
| Extension to the full 15 year termForm 3 · once only, before year 10 | ₹2,000 |
Design registration is the quickest of the industrial rights. An application that draws no objection is often registered in 4 to 8 months. Where a statement of objections issues and has to be answered, 9 to 15 months is more typical.
The binding constraint is not the Design Office — it is the six month window from filing in which the application must be put in order. Replying promptly to a statement of objections is what keeps an application on the fast path.
About these figures. The fees shown are the official fees prescribed in the First Schedule to the Designs Rules, 2001, as amended — the categories reflect the Designs (Amendment) Rules, 2021, which extended the natural person rate to startups and small entities. Fees are revised from time to time — the amounts here were checked in August 2026, and we will confirm the current figures before any step is taken on your behalf. Professional fees are additional to all of the above.
This page is a general guide to the procedure and is not legal advice on any particular design. Timelines other than statutory deadlines are indicative and depend on the class of article and the workload at the Design Office. Please get in touch to discuss your article.