IPA design companies-and-incorporated-bodies — IP Australia Designs Examiners' Manual – 5.1.3. Applicant name: Companies and incorporated bodies

Companies and other incorporated bodies are legal persons and may therefore be applicants for a design. An incorporated applicant should be identified by its full incorporated name. Where the name does not, on its face, indicate that the applicant is an incorporated entity, the application should provide sufficient additional information to establish its legal status. This may include the entity type, jurisdiction of incorporation, registration number, or other identifying particulars. For example, Australian associations may be incorporated under State or Territory legislation and may also be registered under Commonwealth legislation. An applicant name that merely refers to an association, such as ‘XYZ123 Association’, is unlikely to be sufficient unless there is evidence that the association is incorporated. If the information provided is insufficient to identify that the applicant is a company or other incorporated body, and therefore a legal person, a written notice should be issued requesting clarification or evidence of incorporation. For example, ‘John’s Plumbing Pty Ltd’ is identifiable as a company, whereas ‘John’s Plumbing’ appears to be a business name and does not, by itself, identify a legal person. Where an individual name is supplied together with a corporate identifier, the relationship between the individual and the incorporated body should be clarified. The applicant may need to confirm whether the application is intended to proceed in the name of the individual, the incorporated body, or both. Examples of entities that are generally recognised as incorporated bodies include: Limited (Ltd) Proprietary Limited (Pty Ltd) Proprietary Company (Pty) Incorporated (Inc) No Liability Company (NL) Overseas companies incorporated under comparable foreign company laws. Certain terms or naming conventions may suggest that an applicant is an organisation or business but do not, of themselves, establish that the applicant is a legal person. Examples include: Business and trading names Trust names Partnership names (Unincorporated) association, club or society names; and Names containing terms such as ‘Group’, ‘Holdings’, ‘Enterprises’, ‘Services’, ‘Solutions’, or ‘Ventures’. Where the applicant's legal status is not apparent, a written notice should be issued requesting information sufficient to establish that the applicant is a legal person.