Industrial design can be filed in the form of drawings and/or photographs. The soft copy of the representation in JPEG format shall have a size of not more than 100KB and 120×90 pixels. The number of views is unlimited but each view that the Applicant would like to publish is subject to certain official fees.

Yes, within six (6) months from the filing date of the earlier application.

No.

Yes, multiple applications are allowed for designs that relate to the same class of design or to the same set or composition of an article. 

Approximately 12 to 18 months.

The term of protection of a registered industrial design is 25 years from the filing date or priority date. The initial period of registration is for five (5) years and is extendable for four (4) further consecutive terms of five (5) years each.

The terminologies of industrial drawings and industrial models are not being used in Malaysia.
Industrial Design is concerned with the non-functional nature and appearance of objects; i.e. the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of the lines, contours, colors, shape, texture, or materials of the product or its ornamentation.

Protection of Industrial Design in Malaysia is governed by the Industrial Designs Act 1996 (“the ID Act”) and the Industrial Designs Regulations 1999.
Registrable Industrial Design
Industrial Designs cover features of shape, configuration, pattern, or ornamentation applied to an article by any industrial process to make it appeal to the eye. As a general rule, an industrial design consists of:-

-3D features, such as the shape of a product,
-2D features, such as ornamentation, pattern lines or color of a product; or
-A combination of one or more of such features.

In order to grant industrial design registration, the design must meet one or more of the following requirements:

(a)The design is new (a design is not considered to be "new" if, before the priority date of the application, it or a similar industrial design was disclosed to the public in Malaysia or elsewhere);
(b)The design is original – it must have been independently created by a designer and is not a copy or an imitation of the existing design;
(c)The design is industrially applicable which it can be applied and used in commerce;
(d)Not contrary to public order or morality.

Section 7(5) of the Copyright Act 1987 is very clear and states that copyright shall not subsist under the Act in any design which is registered under any written law relating to industrial design. Therefore, there is no dual protection in copyright and design law.

An industrial design cannot be registered if it is:
(i)a method or principle of construction; or
(ii)features of shape or construction of an article which:

(a)are dictated by the function which the article has to perform (i.e., functional); or
(b)are dependent upon the appearance of another article of which the article is intended by the author of the design to form an integral part.

There are several factors that need to be analyzed in order to answer this question.

3D marks are considered and treated the same as all other types of trademarks including two-dimensional trademarks and must always be distinctive since a trademark must always be capable of distinguishing the goods and services in the course of trade. 3D trademarks protect the shape of goods and make them more distinguishable in the market from other goods.

An industrial design is distinguished from a trademark primarily because it is constituted by the appearance of an article. For an industrial design to be registrable it must be new and capable of industrial application, which does not need to be distinctive.

In the recent case in Malaysia, it was briefly highlighted that in practice, consumers do not have a habit of suggesting the origin of the goods based on their shape or the shape of their packaging in the absence of any word or graphic element. It may be inferred that it is more difficult to ascertain the distinctive character of a 3D mark than that of a word or figurative mark.

Giving an example of analyzing the distinctive issue and in the event, the 3D mark is lack distinctive character, the owner might need to protect the article under industrial design provided it has not been made public before the filing date.