Intellectual property is a term often used to refer generically to property rights created through intellectual and/or discovery efforts.

It is a misconception that your registration of a business or company name will give you a proprietary right with respect to that name.

There are numerous steps that need to be taken for a trade mark to become registered.

What are the benefits of registering a design?

There are numerous benefits of registering a design. For example, an owner of a registered design may:

exclusively use the design specified in the design registration
exclusively authorise other people to use the design as specified in the registration
grow the value of the registered design and then licence or sell it
take action to prevent other people from using the design

It is important to know that protection afforded by a design registration is for the appearance of the product and not how it works.