Unregistered design rights arise automatically, cost nothing, and last three years. What they depend on entirely is first disclosure: when the design was made available to the public, where, and what it looked like at that moment. A designer who cannot evidence those three things has a right that is difficult to enforce.
A record made before the design is shown to anyone answers all three, and does so without publishing the design, because only its cryptographic fingerprint leaves your systems.
| Right | How long | What it turns on |
|---|---|---|
| Unregistered EU design | Three years from first disclosure | The date of first disclosure, and the design as it appeared then. Whether the disclosure must occur in the EU is unsettled since 1 May 2025 |
| UK supplementary unregistered design | Three years from first disclosure in the UK | The same, but with the UK as the territory of first disclosure |
| UK unregistered design right | Up to fifteen years, for shape and configuration | When the design was first recorded in a design document, or an article first made |
| Registered design, UK or EU | Renewable up to twenty-five years | The filing date, with a twelve-month grace period after disclosure |
Three of the four are questions about dates. The third row is worth reading twice: the UK unregistered design right runs from when the design was first recorded in a design document, which makes the act of recording the event the right depends on.
For twenty years the rule was Article 110a(5) of the Community Design Regulation: a design not made public within the territory of the Community could not enjoy unregistered protection. The German Federal Supreme Court read that in Gebaeckpresse (I ZR 126/06) as requiring the first worldwide disclosure to happen inside the EU. The UK courts referred the question to the CJEU in Beverly Hills Teddy Bear v PMS International, but the case did not proceed, so no ruling ever came.
Article 110a(5) was deleted outright on 1 May 2025 by Article 1(129) of Regulation (EU) 2024/2822, with no reasoning given by the Commission. The expectation among practitioners is that courts will now apply the same disclosure standard as for novelty, so a design first shown in London, New York or Shanghai should qualify for the unregistered EU design provided the disclosure could reasonably have become known to specialist circles in the EU.
That is an expectation rather than a settled position. Article 11(1) still refers to making a design available to the public within the Community, an inconsistency the deletion did not resolve, and no court has ruled on the point since. The UK side was never symmetrical either: UK legislation contains no equivalent of Article 110a(5), although the UKIPO commented after Brexit as though it did. Firms are still advising simultaneous disclosure in both territories, or registration within the twelve-month grace period, until there is guidance.
What has not changed is the evidential requirement. Whichever way a court eventually reads the deletion, an unregistered right runs from a disclosure, and enforcing it means showing what the design was before that date. That is a question to put to a design lawyer before a season, not after it, and this page is not a substitute for doing so.
In AZ Factory v Valeria Moda, the Tribunal judiciaire de Marseille, First Civil Chamber, decided on 20 March 2025 under case number RG 23/00046 that cryptographic fingerprints anchored on the Bitcoin blockchain were sufficient proof of copyright ownership in a fashion dispute. AZ Factory, the house founded by the late Alber Elbaz, had timestamped its textile designs "Love from Alber" and "Hearts from Alber" on 5 May 2021 and 15 September 2021 using the BlockchainyourIP service, and sued the wholesaler Valeria Moda over garments reproducing them. The evidence in that case was not produced by Provlyn, and we have no involvement in it. What the case shows is how a court treated this kind of evidence, not that any particular provider has been validated.
The court annulled the seizure report, because the bailiff served the inspection order and made the report at the same moment, leaving no reasonable delay and infringing the rights of the defence under Article 495 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It admitted the blockchain evidence regardless, found infringement, and awarded EUR 11,900 in damages with injunctive relief, destruction of the infringing goods and publication of a judicial notice.
Two caveats belong with it. It was a first instance decision and is not binding precedent. And the timestamps did not stand alone: the court accorded them full probative weight as corroborated by a separate bailiff's verification report of 19 October 2022 and evidence of public disclosure, which together formed a consistent body of evidence establishing ownership from the ledger dates. It shows how a court can treat this evidence. It does not show that this evidence wins cases by itself, and any page telling you otherwise is selling something.
A collection is seen by buyers, factories, sampling houses, agents, stylists and press long before it reaches the public. That circulation is where designs leak, and it is also where records stop existing. When a near-identical product appears from another label, the question is who saw the design and when, and the answer is usually a search through old emails.
Provlyn shares from a vault rather than by sending files. Each recipient opens the material through a controlled link, each view is logged against a timestamp, and access can be withdrawn. Each recipient can be issued an individually watermarked copy, so a lookbook appearing where it should not identifies who it was given to. Where a design is being kept back rather than shown, it may also be a trade secret, which carries its own evidential requirements.
One automated sequence, each step taking the output of the one before it. The file is hashed with SHA-256. That hash is timestamped under RFC 3161 by an accredited trust service provider. The timestamped hash is anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain through OpenTimestamps. Only the hash travels, so the design is not published and the record does not itself count as making the design available to the public.
eIDAS qualification is a separate option on top of that sequence. With it, the timestamp carries the presumption under Article 41(2) that the date and time are accurate and the data intact, which shifts the burden to the party disputing it. A blockchain anchor on its own does not carry that presumption, a distinction set out in blockchain timestamps compared with qualified timestamps.
Every certificate can be checked without us, using SHA-256, OpenSSL, the European Commission's trusted lists and any OpenTimestamps client. Our timestamp validator is open source and checks any provider's timestamp, not only ours.
Record your first deposit →By recording the design before it is shown to anyone. The design file is hashed with SHA-256, the hash is timestamped by an accredited trust service provider under RFC 3161, and the result is anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain. The certificate establishes that a file with that exact fingerprint existed on that date. Because unregistered design rights depend on the date and content of first disclosure, a record made before the disclosure is evidence of both the design as it stood and the point from which the right runs.
Protection that arises automatically when a design is first made available to the public, without any application or fee. In the EU it is the unregistered EU design, renamed from unregistered Community design on 1 May 2025 by Regulation (EU) 2024/2822, and it lasts three years from first disclosure in the EU. The UK equivalent is the supplementary unregistered design, also three years, arising on first disclosure in the UK. Both protect against copying rather than independent creation, so the holder has to establish what the design was and when it was disclosed.
It used to, and the position changed on 1 May 2025. Article 110a(5) of the Community Design Regulation said a design not made public within the territory of the Community could not enjoy unregistered protection, and the German Federal Supreme Court read that in Gebaeckpresse (I ZR 126/06) as requiring first worldwide disclosure inside the EU. That provision was deleted outright by Article 1(129) of Regulation (EU) 2024/2822, with no reasoning given. Commentators expect courts to apply the same disclosure standard as for novelty, so a design shown first in London should now qualify for the unregistered EU design provided the disclosure could reasonably have become known to specialist circles in the EU. It is not settled: Article 11(1) still refers to disclosure within the Community, and no court has ruled since the deletion. Practitioners continue to advise simultaneous disclosure, or registration within the twelve-month grace period.
Registration gives a longer and stronger right, and for designs that matter commercially it is usually the better route. There is a twelve-month grace period, so a design can be disclosed and then registered within a year without the disclosure destroying novelty. What registration does not do is remove the evidential question, since a dispute about who designed what first still turns on dated evidence of the design at the point it was created. Registration and a dated record answer different questions.
No, and claims otherwise are worth treating carefully. A timestamp establishes that a specific file existed in a specific form at a specific time and has not changed since. It does not establish who made it, who owns it, or who submitted it. Authorship and ownership are decided on other evidence, such as employment contracts, commissioning arrangements and assignments. What a dated record removes is the argument about when, which in a copying dispute is usually the argument that has to be won first.
Yes, though the position should not be overstated. In AZ Factory v Valeria Moda, decided by the Tribunal judiciaire de Marseille, First Civil Chamber, on 20 March 2025 under case number RG 23/00046, the court accepted cryptographic fingerprints anchored on Bitcoin as proof of copyright in a fashion design dispute. The claimant, the house founded by the late Alber Elbaz, had timestamped the textile designs "Love from Alber" and "Hearts from Alber" on 5 May 2021 and 15 September 2021 using the BlockchainyourIP service, not Provlyn. The court annulled the seizure report, because the bailiff served the inspection order and made the report at the same moment, leaving no reasonable delay and infringing the rights of the defence under Article 495 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It admitted the blockchain evidence regardless, found infringement and awarded EUR 11,900 in damages. It was a first instance decision and is not binding precedent, and the timestamps did not stand alone: they were accorded full probative weight as corroborated by a separate bailiff verification report of 19 October 2022 and evidence of public disclosure, which together formed a consistent body of evidence.
The work as it stood at each point that matters. Sketches, pattern files, technical specifications, CAD files, lookbook images, colourways, sample photographs. Recording the sequence establishes how a design developed, which answers a copying allegation running in either direction: it shows the progression an independent creator would have and a copier would not. Each deposit produces its own certificate, so a collection can be recorded piece by piece rather than as one file.
Share from a vault rather than by sending files. Each recipient opens the material through a controlled link, every view is logged against a timestamp, and access can be withdrawn. Each recipient can be issued an individually watermarked copy, so a lookbook that appears somewhere it should not identifies who it was given to. Pre-release circulation to buyers, factories, press and agents is where designs leak, and it is also the point where nobody keeps a record of who received what.
No. Only the SHA-256 hash is timestamped and anchored, and a hash cannot be reversed to recover the file it came from. The design stays private and unpublished. This matters because disclosure is the event that starts the clock on an unregistered right and affects novelty for registration, so a designer needs to record the work without that record counting as making it available to the public.
This page gives general information about design rights and evidence. It is not legal advice, and the position on first disclosure between the UK and the EU is unsettled. For a specific matter, consult a qualified design or intellectual property lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction.