Cumulative protection of designs under industrial property and unfair competition law

Design law and unfair competition law are branches of law that have different functions and are based on different principles, with different areas of application, purposes and subjects. Design law protects the new and distinctive product appearance through the rights it grants to the design owner. Unfair competition law is based on the labor principle and is about providing and protecting an honest and unspoiled competition environment by determining a number of rules of conduct. Since one of the intersection points of design law and unfair competition law is the idea of preventing unfair use of products created by someone else, it may be possible for an act to affect the interests of both branches of law. For this reason, the debate on whether these two branches of law can be applied cumulatively never loses its currency and becomes even more important due to developing technology and trade networks. In addition, the question of whether it is possible to protect designs with unfair competition provisions, especially those that cannot benefit from registration protection according to design law or whose protection period has expired, is important in terms of encouraging creative human activity and innovations, as well as ensuring public interest. For the above-mentioned reasons, it is important to analyze the application purposes and principles of the two branches of law correctly and to present in detail the consequences that may arise from cumulative application, in terms of the unity of the legal order and legal predictability.