Design rights and 3D printing in the UK: Balancing innovation and creativity in a (dis)harmonised and fragmented legal framework

Design rights protect the appearance of products, an expression that includes features such as shape, contours, lines and colours applied to or incorporated in material objects. This often corresponds to what in common parlance is usually identified as industrial design or applied art. It thus seems plausible that a right protecting the shape of things matters when the focus of analysis is 3D printing, that is to say a set of technologies that promise to replicate everyday objects and to ‘manufacture (almost) anything’, a promise that, if kept, might lead to a third or fourth industrial revolution. Nevertheless, as any technical, social or economic innovation, also the phenomenon of 3D printing must be tested against the applicable legal framework. The latter, in turn, bears the task of balancing technological innovation needs with the interests vesting in the many stakeholders affected by the change. This is a very difficult balance to achieve, as on the one hand it must enable innovation and competition, while on the other hand it must protect creativity and investments: two often opposing sets of values. In the present chapter the role played by design rights in this balancing exercise will be examined in respect to the UK and EU legal systems.