Copyright, design right and trade marks for makers
You already own copyright in your work — it is automatic and free. What that does and does not cover, why commissioned work catches freelancers out, and when a trade mark is worth £205.
Creative businesses tend to worry about the wrong intellectual property. People ask how to copyright a design, which you do not need to do, while signing commission agreements that hand away rights they did not realise they had.
Copyright is automatic
In the UK there is no copyright register, no form and no fee. Copyright exists the moment you create an original work and fix it — a drawing, a photograph, a piece of writing, a recording, a pattern. It lasts for the creator's life plus 70 years.
- Marking work “© Your Name 2026” is not required, but it is cheap and makes infringement harder to argue was accidental.
- What protects you in a dispute is dated evidence of creation: original files with their metadata intact, dated sketchbooks, emails to yourself. Keep the RAW files and the working files.
- Copyright protects the expression, not the idea. Nobody can stop you making a blue mug; someone can stop you copying their specific pattern on one.
Design right covers the shape of things
Copyright is a weak fit for the appearance of a product. Design right fills that gap and, like copyright, the unregistered kind is automatic:
| Right | What it covers | How long |
|---|---|---|
| UK unregistered design right | Shape and configuration of a product | 10 years from first sale, or 15 from creation — whichever ends first |
| Supplementary unregistered design | Appearance, including surface decoration | 3 years from first being made public in the UK |
| Registered design | Appearance, with a much stronger right you can enforce | Up to 25 years, renewed every 5 |
Registration costs money but turns an argument about who made what first into a certificate with a date on it. It is worth considering if a single design carries a lot of your income.
Trade marks protect the name, not the work
A trade mark is your business name, logo or product name. It is the only one of these that requires an application and a fee:
- £205 for the first class of goods or services, £60 for each additional class (fees rose on 1 April 2026).
- Renewal is £245, plus £60 per extra class, every 10 years.
- Choosing the right classes matters more than most people expect — a mark registered for ceramics does not cover teaching workshops.
Free help with this, locally
The Business & IP Centre on the first floor of Southampton Central Library runs free one-to-one IP clinics and has access to the British Library's IP resources. It is genuinely free and genuinely specialist, and it is the single best answer to an IP question in this area. There is a guide to it below.
Sources
Everything above was checked against these on 12 August 2026. Fees and thresholds change — if you are about to act on a number, follow the link and confirm it.