Designs determined exclusively by a technical function cannot be registered, under Art. 8(1) of the Design Law No 129/92, as republished in 2014. Designs contrary to public order and morality shall be excluded from protection, as well, under Art. 9 of the same Law.

The application shall be refused if it incorporates a work protected under the Copyright and Related Rights Law No. 8/1996 or any other protected industrial property right, without the owner’s consent. The application shall be refused, as well, if it constitutes an improper use of any of the objects mentioned in the list under Art. 6 ter of the Paris Convention, or an abusive use of the emblems and escutcheons, others than those mentioned under the Article 6 ter of the Convention accessed by Romania in 1968.

Under Art. 6 of the Design Law No 129/92„the subject of the application may be registered to the extent in which it constitutes a design, within the meaning of Art. 2, it is new and has individual character.”

Under Art. 2, d) of the above-mentioned Law, a design is the appearance of a product or of a part thereof, in two or three dimensions, resulting from the combination of the main features, particularly lines, outlines, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation; examples of two-dimensional designs are: graphic representations and patterns to be carried out on paper, plastics, fabrics, porcelain, ceramics or wood; examples of three-dimensional designs (Art. 2, h)) are pieces of furniture, footwear, vases, electric apparatus casings and the like.