Design/Patent Overlap: Mold-Tek v Neway

Explainer · Design and Patent Overlap

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

A product maker often protects the same item twice: a patent for how it works, and a design registration for how it looks. The worry that follows is simple. If you hold a design registration, are you safe from a patent holder, and can one product really carry both rights? In Mold-Tek v Neway (FAO(COMM) 241/2025, decided 28 January 2026), the Delhi High Court gave a clear answer for patent infringement. This page explains the overlap in plain English. Last verified October 2026.

01The overlap problem: one product, two registrations

The overlap problem is this: a single physical product can show up in two different IP registers, and people assume that having one registration shields them from the other. That assumption is where the risk sits.

Why it comes up so often

Think of a container lid, a bottle closure, a pump or a tool handle. It has a shape that buyers see. It also has parts that do a job, such as locking, sealing or releasing. The shape can be registered as a design. The working mechanism can be claimed in a patent. The same item therefore sits in both worlds.

The dangerous assumption

A company registers its own design, launches the product, and then receives a patent infringement notice. The first reaction is often: "But our product is a registered design, so it is lawful." That is the question Mold-Tek v Neway answers. A design registration is permission to protect a look. It is not permission to copy someone else’s patented invention.

A design registration protects how a product looks. It does not give you the right to use someone else’s patented invention.

02Patent and design: two different rights

A patent protects a new technical idea, while a design registration protects the appearance of an article. They sit under two different Indian laws and cover different things.

• Patent (Patents Act, 1970): protects an invention, meaning how a thing works. The scope is set by the claims in the patent.
• Design (Designs Act, 2000): protects the features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament that appeal to the eye in a finished article.

The Designs Act itself keeps the two apart. Its definition of a design in Section 2(d) does not cover a mode or principle of construction, or anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device. In simple words, if a feature is there only because of how it works, it is a patent matter, not a design matter.

Why the line matters

Because the rights are separate, winning in one does not decide the other. A valid design does not prove your product is free of someone’s patent. A valid patent does not stop someone else from holding a design for a different look. Each is tested on its own terms.

The official registers sit with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks. You can search each register on IP India, and read the statutes on India Code.

03The case: Mold-Tek v Neway

Mold-Tek v Neway is a Delhi High Court appeal about two patents on plastic pail closures, decided by a Division Bench on 28 January 2026. The matter reached the Division Bench as cross-appeals from an interim order of the Commercial Court.

The parties and the patents

Mold-Tek Packaging Limited held two patents: IN 401417, for a tamper-evident, leak proof pail closure system, and IN 298724, for a tamper proof lid with a spout for containers. It alleged that Neway’s products infringed them. The appeals were FAO(COMM) 235/2025 and the connected FAO(COMM) 241/2025. This page cites FAO(COMM) 241/2025 as the decision of 28 January 2026.

What happened in outline

• An ex parte interim injunction had been granted in January 2024.
• For the first patent, the Division Bench upheld the injunction. It found that Neway had not made out a credible challenge to validity, because its pleas of anticipation and obviousness were not backed by a claim-to-claim comparison with specific prior art.
• For the second patent, the Bench held that infringement was made out, set aside the lower court’s finding of invalidity, restored the injunction, and sent the validity question back for fresh consideration. The Bench said the lower court had wrongly placed the burden on the patentee.

Public reports of the decision are on LiveLaw and BananaIP. The judgment text is on the Delhi High Court website. Always read the order itself before relying on a summary.

04What the court said about design registration

The Delhi High Court held that holding a design registration for a product is not a defence to patent infringement. In the words reported from the judgment, a design registration conferred no right to appropriate the substance of a patented invention, and its existence was irrelevant to the infringement analysis.

How the infringement test was applied

The Bench looked at the functional features of the patented closure, such as the tamper-evident tear band, the locking arrangement, the teeth, the sealing and the stackability. It then compared them with the defendant’s product. It applied the idea of pith and marrow, and equivalence, to say that small changes in dimension did not avoid infringement.

The burden on the defendant

Once infringement looks established on the face of it, the defendant who says the patent is invalid must bring a real case. Under Section 107 of the Patents Act, read with Section 64, an invalidity defence is available. But the Bench said it must be built on an element-by-element comparison with the claims and the prior art, not on bare words.

The takeaway from Mold-Tek v Neway: your own design registration is no shield against a patent. The question is whether your product falls within the patent claims.

05Can one product hold both a patent and a design?

Yes, one product can be covered by a patent and by a design, as long as each right is valid for its own subject. The patent covers the working idea. The design covers the visible look of the article. The two registrations do not cancel each other out.

Where the rights stay apart

• The design right must be about appearance. If a feature is purely functional, it cannot be the basis of a valid design.
• The patent right must be about a technical advance described in claims. A pretty shape alone is not a patentable invention.

Where trouble starts

Trouble starts when a design registration is really covering functional features. That can make the design open to attack. A registered design can be cancelled on grounds listed in the Designs Act, including that the subject is not a design as defined. See design cancellation under Section 19 for the grounds and process.

A second risk is the reverse one. A product can use a design the owner is entitled to, and still fall within another party’s patent claims. That is the exact situation the Delhi High Court addressed in Mold-Tek v Neway.

One caution on scope: this page does not say that a design registration and a patent can never conflict in any other way, for example on prior publication. Public disclosure of a product before filing can affect the novelty of either right. That depends on facts and on the statute, so take advice for a specific case.

06What this means in practice

For a product company, the practical lesson is to clear patents, not only designs, before launch. For a patent owner, the lesson is that a defendant’s design registration should not stop an infringement action.

If you hold a design and get a patent notice

• Map the patent claims against your product, element by element.
• If you plan to say the patent is invalid, prepare the prior art and a claim-to-claim comparison from day one.
• Do not rely on your design registration as the defence.

If you hold a patent and see a lookalike

• Prepare a claim chart of your claims against the other product.
• Check the other side’s registrations too, so you know what they will argue.
• Expect the invalidity plea, and be ready to show prima facie validity where the court asks.

If your concern is brand protection rather than inventions and shapes, see trademark management software for India.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

A case like Mold-Tek v Neway shows why the court record matters more than the register when a patent and a design collide. Claw helps you trace that record. It tracks cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, searches 30 crore+ judgments in under 5 seconds, and reaches back to Supreme Court judgments from 1950 and High Court judgments from 1990. So you can follow an appeal like this one through its interim orders, or find how other benches have treated a design-registration defence to a patent claim.

Claw does not use customer documents to train AI models. Create a FREE Claw account to research patent and design disputes and to track a live suit by party or advocate name. To search the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.

08Sources and further reading

Primary sources and reports used for this page, last verified October 2026:

• Judgment (FAO(COMM) 235/2025 and connected matter, 28 January 2026): Delhi High Court
• Statutes: India Code (Patents Act, 1970 and Designs Act, 2000)
• Registers: IP India
• Report: LiveLaw
• Report: BananaIP
• Claw: clawlaw.in

Secondary reports can differ from the judgment. Read the order itself before relying on a quotation.

09Frequently asked questions