"What requirements must a design meet?"

A design must be new

Designs will also be considered new if they are published or shown to third parties within one year prior to the date on which protection was requested. To determine the novelty of both the Benelux and EU designs, it is important to know whether the designs involved have come to the attention of insiders in the relevant sector within the region that consists of the European Economic Area (European Union, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein).

A design must have its own character

That means that the general impression which the design has made on the informed user (consumers and/or experts) is unlike the general impression which the user has of existing, publicly available designs. The new design must visibly deviate from existing designs. What matters here is the designer’s freedom while developing the design. In this process, the designer must bear in mind the functional requirements of a product, which may limit his creativity. This can vary according to the branch of industry in question.