Patenting digital graphic design: problems and solutions

Total digitalization faces legislators with new challenges related to the legal protection of creative results of intellectual activity in the digital environment. Graphical user interfaces and virtual graphic symbols, which require effective legal protection, are recognized as an efficient tool for competition among software developers. However, patent law provisions regarding industrial designs applied for decades require adaptation to the digital nature of virtual design. Experts discuss the issues of patenting a graphical user interface and a virtual graphic symbol: what is considered a product when patenting them, how to determine the scope of legal protection of such industrial designs, including if the components of the graphical interface are animated elements or transition pages. Regulations vary from country to country. The Russian lawmakers will have to find their own solution. The Eurasian lawmakers faces the same task. The aim of the research was to study and compare the approaches of lawmakers of non-CIS countries, including China, the European Union, the USA and Japan, as well as lawmakers of Russia and member states of the Eurasian Patent Convention, to the regulation of the rules for patenting a graphical user interface and a virtual graphic symbol, as well as prepare proposals to introduce appropriate changes to the Russian and Eurasian patent legislation. The study revealed legal regulation peculiarities that are important for patenting graphical interfaces and virtual graphic symbols applied by lawmakers in different countries and regions, similarities and differences in regulation, and assessed the approaches used in terms of the scope of patent rights granted. The study defines possible ways to improve the Russian and Eurasian legislation on industrial designs related to the field of virtual design.

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