The Strategic Value of Design Rights: Turning protected design into competitiveness and growth
Join us for a practical, engaging and hands-on morning exploring the strategic value of design rights — how protecting design turns creativity into competitiveness and growth, why registration matters across every field of design, and what encourages more companies, especially SMEs, to protect what they create.
Background
Design protection is a cornerstone of a product’s value, whether tangible or intangible. A registered design helps a company stand out in the market, licence or sell its design as an asset, and stop copycats — while giving investors the assurance that what they back is unique and protected. For many businesses, design protection is a strategically important tool for growth and competitiveness.
Yet across Europe this potential remains unevenly used: registrations are dominated by larger companies, while SMEs, independent designers and design studios — who have just as much to gain — often leave their work unprotected. With the modernised EU design framework in force since 1 July 2026, including new possibilities for digital and dynamic designs, and with the growing role of AI in the creative process, there has never been a more important moment to make the value of design protection tangible and accessible to the whole design community.
Ljubljana hosts this year’s DesignEuropa Awards, and this occasion brings together designers, businesses, design students and IP experts to connect, learn, and discuss how protecting design can strengthen Europe’s creative and economic vitality.
Programme
09:30 – 09:40 · Opening statements
BEDA, EUIPO, and the Faculty of Design (host welcome)
09:40 – 10:00 · EUIPO — the value of design rights and the new legal framework
The strategic value of design rights and how the modernised EU framework (in force since 1 July 2026) protects designs, including new digital and dynamic formats.
10:00 – 11:00 · Design in Practice
The Value of Design: Why Protection Matters for Business — Dita Danosa, BEDA
Design, AI and Intellectual Property: Who Creates the Future? — Faculty of Design (Erasmus+ AIDEA research)
Experience stories from design-driven companies (TBC): Maremico, Intra Lighting, Donar
11:00 – 11:15 · Coffee break & Interactive Registration Corner
An EUIPO information corner with practical guidance on registering and managing design rights — procedures, online tools and support services.
11:15 – 11:45 · Round-table / group discussions
Participants join discussion tables led by BEDA members and EUIPO experts, combining technical insight with designers’ practical experience. Three themes:
Protected design, real value — the value of protecting design and designers’ experiences across the whole journey: protecting, managing, using and defending their design rights.
Design and AI — what AI-generated works mean for authorship, ownership and protection, and the new AI-based tools for designers and businesses.
Support and empowerment — what encourages designers and SMEs to protect their designs, and the support available (guidance, funding, training and advice), including what to do when disputes over design rights arise.
Moderators: BEDA & EUIPO colleagues.
11:45 – 12:00 · Key insights & closing
Workshop participants will also have the exclusive opportunity to join the DesignEuropa Awards ceremony. Invitations will follow from EUIPO by email.
Organised by BEDA and EUIPO as a side event of the DesignEuropa Awards 2026, and hosted by the Faculty of Design (Fakulteta za dizajn) in Ljubljana.
The Event is free of charge!