GUI registration under Design Laws in India: Calcutta High Court settles the debate

Nearly three years ago, we wrote about the “hope” for GUI (graphical user interfaces) registration under Indian design laws, drawing upon the then-nascent jurisprudence emerging from the Calcutta High Court in UST Global (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. vs. The Controller of Patents and Designs. In this judgment, Calcutta High Court had remanded the matter back to Controller for fresh consideration, and the question of GUI registrability remained legally unsettled..In a recent case, on March 9, 2026, Justice Ravi Krishan Kapur of Calcutta High Court (IPD) delivered a landmark judgment in a batch of five consolidated appeals- NEC Corporation vs. The Controller of Patents and Designs, ERBE Elektromedizin GmbH vs. The Controller of Patents and Designs, Abiomed Inc. vs. The Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs, and TVS Motor Company Limited vs. The Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs- holding unequivocally that “GUIs are eligible for design registration under the Act”, subject to satisfaction of the criteria as enumerated under Sections 2(a) and 2(d) of the Designs Act on a case-by-case basis..As discussed in our earlier article, the Office of Designs had consistently rejected GUI design applications on a set of recurring grounds:GUIs do not constitute an “article” within the meaning of section 2(a) of the Act, since the display screen and not the GUI is the article; GUIs are not “applied” to an article through any industrial process, being products of software development rather than manual, mechanical or chemical means; GUIs lack permanence, being visible only when the device is switched ON; GUIs, being functional software-based elements, are not capable of being “judged solely by the eye”; and GUIs cannot be registered as designs since they are already protected as artistic works under the Copyright Act, 1957, and dual protection is impermissible..These grounds had found expression not only in individual refusal orders but also in the Controller’s order in UST Global (Singapore) case, which the respondent authorities heavily relied upon in the present batch of cases.The Calcutta High Court in the case at hand, systematically dismantled each of these objections..GUI qualifies as an “Article” under Section 2(a)The Court rejected the respondent’s narrow interpretation that “article” must refer to something physically tangible and that design must have physical embodiment in order to qualify for registration. The Court held that the expression “article of manufacture” in section 2(a) of the Design Act was broad and generic and must be interpreted liberally and purposively.The Court also clarified that the design and the article are distinct and independent concepts and that Section 2(d) required that a design be applied to an article. In other words, the design itself need not be the article. For a GUI, the relevant “article” can vary from case to case and may include the display unit (the screen or hardware component), or finished product sold to consumers such as a phone, tablet, automobile dashboard, or medical device display..GUI is “applied by any industrial process”The respondent had taken the position that was endorsed in UST Global order - that the Act’s reference to industrial process was limited to manual, mechanical or chemical processes, and that software-based processes did not qualify for protection. The Court characterised this as a “glaring mistake” and held that the word “any” preceding “industrial process” in section 2(d) was deliberate and indicative of legislature’s intent to provide a broad and inclusive interpretation and that enumeration of manual, mechanical and chemical processes in the section was merely illustrative, not exhaustive.The Court in the case also applied principle of “updating construction”, holding that in interpreting intellectual property legislation, which is fundamentally linked to technological development, courts must account for advances in technology that have occurred since the enactment of the legislation. Displaying or applying a GUI to a display surface involves the systematic manipulation of electronic signals and precise rendering by advanced hardware, which undeniably constitutes an industrial process in the modern sense..Permanence is not a statutory requirementCourt held that section 2(d) of the Act contained no requirement that a design should be permanently visible or permanently affixed to the article. The Court was of the view that concept of permanence had been erroneously imported into the definition of “design” in all impugned orders without any statutory basis.The Court relied upon the English decision in the case of KK Suwa Seikosha’s Design Application [1982] RPC 166, where a watch display that became visible only when activated by the battery was held, to be registrable as a design.The Court further observed that the “test of noticeability”, reflected in India’s own Manual of Designs Practice and Procedure, recognized the concept that internal features visible only during use may be registered as designs. The Court eventually held that the correct legal test was whether the design is visible when the article is put to its intended or normal use..GUIs satisfy “judged solely by the eye” testThe Court addressed the two-limbed inquiry under this test: (a) what is “finished article”, and (b) whether GUIs, being functional, are excluded from protection.With respect to first limb, Court held that impugned orders had proceeded on a misconception of what constituted the “finished article.” The term “finished article” was not expressly defined in Act, and legislature had deliberately distinguished it from “any article.” The finished article for a GUI encompassed the complete consumer-facing product the phone, the tablet, the automobile dashboard and the GUI, as displayed on that product during normal use, which was plainly capable of being judged by the eye.With respect to the second limb, the Court held that the respondent authorities had fundamentally confused the “functional” aspect of a GUI i.e. how it operates with its “ornamental” aspect i.e. how it looks. The Court further noted that while a GUI may have functional elements, it may simultaneously possess design features involving aesthetic choices such as arrangement, proportion, spacing, colour palette, iconography and layout which were solely dictated by functional aspect..No bar on dual protectionThe Court rejected contention of the respondent that GUIs cannot be registered as designs because they are already protected as artistic works under Copyright Act, 1957. The Court held that statutory framework itself resolved the apparent conflict: Section 2(d) excludes from design registration any “artistic work” as defined in Section 2(c) of the Copyright Act, while Section 15 of the Copyright Act provided that copyright protection shall not subsist in a design registered under Designs Act, and shall cease for designs capable of registration that have been applied industrially more than fifty times.More importantly, the Court held that drawing upon the Supreme Court’s analysis in Cryogas Equipment (P) Ltd. vs. Inox India Ltd, a GUI, when integrated and industrially applied to an article, differs in its legal character from a standard artistic work or computer programme..The Locarno Classification: Indicative, not determinativeCourt held that while the Locarno Classification was indicative and provided administrative guidance for filing and search, it could not by itself create or exclude design protection. The registration of a GUI remained subject to the fulfilment of Sections 2(a) and 2(d) of the Act. That said, the Court observed that India’s adoption of the Locarno Agreement and the 2021 amendment evidenced a clear legislative and administrative intent to recognise and protect digital designs and GUIs..Foreign decisions are of persuasive valueThe Court firmly repudiated the Controller’s blanket refusal to consider foreign decisions, holding this to be contrary to well-settled principles affirmed by the Supreme Court in the case of Forasol vs. ONGC. The Court noted that the Supreme Court itself in Cryogas Equipment case, had drawn extensively upon English and US decisions on the interpretation of “design.”.This judgment of Justice Ravi Krishan Kapur establishes the following clear propositions:.There is no per se bar on GUI design registration; The definitions of “article” and “design” under Sections 2(a) and 2(d) must be interpreted “broadly and purposively”; The relevant article for GUI varies case to case and is not restricted to display screen alone. The process of displaying GUI on a finished article qualifies as an industrial process. Permanence is not a statutory requirement and visibility during normal use suffices. GUI registration does not create dual protection with copyright; Each application must be assessed on its own merits, based on whether specific GUI has ornamental or aesthetic elements..However, the Court has also acknowledged that significant ambiguity persists in the Designs Office and has called for clarificatory guidance, either by the Legislature or by the Controller through appropriate directions, to expand the scope of protectable designs and bring India in line with international practice..When we wrote our earlier article in 2023, we described the jurisprudence on GUI design registration in India as a “hope." The Calcutta High Court’s judgment of March 2026 transforms that hope into a settled law. The blanket refusal pattern of the Designs Office stands judicially repudiated, and the path to GUI design registration in India, while still requiring a careful, case-specific approach, is now open..About the authors: Vikrant Rana is the Managing Partner of SS Rana & Co. Shilpi Saurav Sharan is a Managing Associate at the Firm..Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s). The opinions presented do not necessarily reflect the views of Bar & Bench..If you would like your Deals, Columns, Press Releases to be published on Bar & Bench, please fill in the form available here.