IP Basics

What is a registered design?

Designs protect the appearance of a product: shape, patterns, ornamentation: the way something looks, not how it works.

Designs, in short

How you get it: registration (e.g. EU registered design, US design patent); the EU also protects unregistered designs briefly.
How long it lasts in the EU and Switzerland: up to 25 years, taken in 5-year periods that you renew (and pay for) as you go. This 25-year figure is a European one; it is not a world rule.
How long it lasts in the United States: a design patent runs 15 years from grant, with no renewals and no maintenance fees to pay. Applications filed before 13 May 2015 got 14 years.
So the same product's look can be protected for 25 years in Lausanne and 15 in California. Territoriality again.