# Industrial Design Registration in Malaysia

> When registering the appearance of a product beats a trademark or a patent — and the novelty rule that kills most applications, because Malaysian design law gives the designer no grace period at all.

- Category: business
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-20
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/business/industrial-design-malaysia

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The single most expensive mistake in Malaysian product IP is launching first.
A patent applicant who showed the invention last month is still fine — s.14(3) of
the Patents Act 1983 gives a twelve-month grace period. A design applicant in the
same position has usually already lost the right, because the Industrial Designs
Act 1996 gives no equivalent.

## What an industrial design covers

Features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article by an
industrial process, which in the finished article appeal to the eye and are
judged by the eye. Appearance, not function, and not branding.

Not registrable: a method or principle of construction; designs whose appearance
depends on another article of which they form an integral part; designs differing
only in immaterial details; and **features dictated solely by function**. That
last exclusion is where most engineering-led applications fail — if the shape had
to be that shape to work, there is nothing to register.

## Where it beats a trademark or a patent

| Right | Test | Typical filing cost | Term |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Industrial design | New appearance | RM480 per design + RM200 per view | 5 years, to 25 |
| Trademark | Distinctive as a badge of origin | RM950 per class | 10 years, renewable |
| Patent | New, inventive step, industrially applicable | RM290 filing + RM1,100 examination | 20 years |
| Utility innovation | New, industrially applicable | See the patent guide | 10 years, to 20 |

A shape can eventually function as a trademark, but only once it has acquired
distinctiveness — which takes years of trading and evidence. A design
registration gives an enforceable right over the appearance on day one, with no
distinctiveness test and no inventive-step test. For furniture, packaging forms,
housewares, electronics housings and fashion hardware, it is usually the right
first filing.

## The fees

From MyIPO's published schedule:

| Matter | Manual (RM) | Online (RM) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Application for a single design (Form ID 1) | 500 | 480 |
| Each additional design specified | 500 | 480 |
| Publication, per view of the representation | 200 | 200 |
| Extension for each further period (Form ID 2) | 800 | 780 |
| Surcharge in the grace period, per month, max 6 months | 200 | 200 |
| Restoration of a registered design (Form ID 3) | 800 | 780 |
| Record an assignment or transmission (Form ID 5) | 300 | 280 |
| Rectification or revocation (Form ID 6) | 600 | 580 |
| Amendment of an application or registration (Form ID 9) | 200 | 180 |
| Appointment or change of agent (Form ID 10) | 100 | 80 |
| Extension of time (Form ID 13) | 300 | 280 |
| Public search | 20 | 20 |

The per-view publication fee is the line most budgets miss. A design filed with
six views is RM480 plus RM1,200.

## The novelty rule, and the stale Act on MyIPO's own site

Section 12(1) says a design shall not be registered unless it is new. Section
12(2)(a) says it is not new if, before the priority date, it or a design
differing only in immaterial details was disclosed to the public **anywhere in
Malaysia or elsewhere**.

Those last two words matter, and they are missing from the Act as published. The
Industrial Designs Act 1996 PDF hosted on myipo.gov.my is the reprint **as at
1 January 2013** and still reads "anywhere in Malaysia". The Industrial Designs
(Amendment) Act 2013 (Act A1449) inserted "or elsewhere" into s.12(2)(a), and
also changed s.25(2) from two further extension terms to four — which is why the
registration now runs to 25 years, and why MyIPO's fee page carries "NEW FEE"
rows for the fourth and fifth periods that the Act text does not explain. Read
the hosted PDF alone and you get superseded law on both the novelty standard and
the term.

Section 12(3) is the only relief, and it is narrow: a disclosure within six
months before filing is disregarded if the design appeared in an official or
officially recognised exhibition, or if it was disclosed by someone other than
the applicant as a result of an unlawful act. Your own launch, your own
catalogue, your own website and your own trade-show booth at an unofficial fair
are none of those things.

## Foreign applicants

Section 14(2): where the applicant's ordinary residence or principal place of
business is outside Malaysia, an agent in Malaysia must be appointed for service,
and the Registrar may refuse to proceed until one is. The test is residence or
principal place of business, not nationality.

## Common mistakes

**Filing after the product ships.** There is no self-disclosure grace period.
File before any public disclosure, or accept that the design right is gone.

**Assuming the shape is protected because it is distinctive.** Distinctiveness is
a trademark concept. Design law asks only whether the appearance is new.

**Registering a shape that had to be that shape.** Features dictated solely by
function are excluded. If the answer to "why this shape" is engineering, look at
a utility innovation instead.

**Budgeting for the filing fee only.** Add RM200 for every view you publish, and
remember that a multiple application under s.15 charges per design, not per
application.

**Letting the five years run out.** Extension is RM780 per design per period, with
only a six-month grace at RM200 per month.

## What's next

If the product is about to launch, file the design application before anything
goes public — then decide at leisure whether the underlying mechanism also
justifies a patent or a utility innovation.

## Sources

- Industrial Designs Act 1996 (Act 552), reprint as at 1 January 2013 — https://www.myipo.gov.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Industrial-Designs-Act-1996-Akta-552.pdf (MyIPO)
- Industrial Designs (Amendment) Act 2013 (Act A1449) — https://www.myipo.gov.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/id-act-amendment2013eng.pdf (MyIPO)
- Industrial Design Forms and Fees — https://www.myipo.gov.my/industrial-design-forms-and-fees/ (MyIPO)
- Industrial Design Basic — https://www.myipo.gov.my/industrial-design-basic/ (MyIPO)
- Industrial Designs (Amendment) Regulations 2013, P.U. (A) 182/2013 — https://www.myipo.gov.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pua_20130624-1-1.pdf (Attorney General's Chambers)

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