5.1.13. Applicant name: Applicant name and design owner

Designer name

Every application must include the name of the designer. The designer name should be the name of the natural person(s) who conceived of the design and gave it visible form.

There can be more than one designer. In that case, the application should list each designer individually. If there are multiple designs and more than one designer, it must be clear which designer is responsible for which design.

Sometimes the creator of the design may not be clearly identifiable. For example, this can happen where many sections of a large company have been involved in making a design or where a company was contracted to do the design. An individual name is always preferable to a company or group name. However, sometimes it is not possible to identify an individual as the designer.

If the application does not identify a designer, we must ask the owner to provide the designer name. If they say the individual designers cannot be identified and they give good reasons for that, the designers could be identified as ‘Members of the Design Team of XXXX Pty Ltd’ or ‘Employees of XXXX Pty Ltd’ or something similar.

Design owner

A designer is entitled to be the registered owner of a design (s 13(1)(a)).

Applications submitted through Online Services require designer details to be added, even if the designer is also the applicant (owner of the applied for design). Where owner details are requested, the system prompts users to add the details of entitled owners if they differ from the user’s profile.

Applications submitted using the application form on the IP Australia website include a statement that the applicant is entitled to be entered on the Register as the registered owner of the design(s).

If an application is submitted using another form, a statement of entitlement (see below) is required (unless the name of the applicant is exactly the same as the name of the designer). If there are multiple applicants, all of the applicants must be the designers. This is to ensure that the applicants are all entitled to be owners. The names must also match exactly. For example, if the applicant is listed as 'John R Doe' but the designer is listed as 'John Reginald Doe' and there is no statement of entitlement, we must ask the applicant to give the correct name.

If entitlement is not clear, we must issue a formalities notice requesting a statement of entitlement.

Statement of entitlement

The applicant can lodge a separate statement of entitlement clearly showing that the applicant is the owner of the design. This statement should be signed and dated by the person making the statement.

If the statement does not clearly show entitlement, we should issue a formalities notice requesting a statement of entitlement. Note, however, that this scenario is an unlikely one as applicants submitting through Online Services and using the application form on the IP Australia website will see prompts regarding entitlement.​​​​

Name of the entitled owner is shown in other documents

If the name of the person who is entitled to be the owner of a design is shown in other documents lodged with the application – e.g. a covering letter, it may not be necessary to formally ask the applicant for this information.