What's the issue?

The new EU Design Regulation changes the renewal date for registered EU designs (REUDs) (formerly called Registered Community Designs) with effect from 1 May 2025. The change applies to existing registrations as well as designs registered in future.

REUD owners should be aware of the new renewal dates so that their registrations do not accidentally lapse. They might also want to renew design registrations early (before 1 May 2025) so as to take advantage of the significantly lower renewals fees.

What's the change?

The owners of REUDs have always been given until the end of the calendar month in which the registration expires to request renewal and to pay the renewal fee (Article 13). That will change on 1 May 2025. The request for renewal and renewal fee must now be paid before the actual expiry date of the REUD (Article 50d(2)). While there is a six-month grace period for renewal, REUD owners will want to avoid missing the renewal deadline and having to pay additional fees for late renewal.

Renewal deadlines occurring before 1 May 2025

Where a REUD has a renewal deadline before 1 May 2025, the old rules will still apply for calculating both the renewal and grace periods. For example, a REUD applied for on 15 April 2020, would expire on 15 April 2025 (five years following application) but would have a renewal deadline of 30 April 2025 (the end of the calendar month of expiry). Given that REUDs can be renewed at any time within the six months before the renewal deadline, this particular REUD could be renewed any time from 1 November 2024 to 30 April 2025 (six months). The six-month grace period (for late renewal) then runs from 1 May to 31 October 2025.

Renewal deadlines occurring after 1 May 2025

Where a REUD has a renewal deadline after 1 May 2025, the new rules will apply to calculate the renewal and grace period. For example, a REUD applied for on 23 November 2020, would expire on (and must now be renewed by) 23 November 2025. Renewal can be filed anytime in the six months before the renewal deadline ie from 24 May 2025 to 23 November 2025. The grace period runs from 24 November 2025 to 23 May 2026.

Renewal fees

Renewal requests filed before 1 May 2025 will still benefit from the old EUIPO renewal fees; those filed after will have to pay the new increased EUIPO fees. Since the fees are generally increasing significantly (more than doubling in most cases), renewing early (where possible) should lead to significant savings for many REUD owners. For the official renewal fees most will pay, see here.

Importantly, renewing early does not mean that the period of protection is cut short in any way. Protection is still given for five years from the relevant expiry date (irrespective of when the renewal is requested and the fee is paid).