{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/copyright-designs-and-patents-act-1988/section-51",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/copyright-designs-and-patents-act-1988/section-51.json",
  "legislation": "ukpga/1988/48",
  "legislation_title": "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/copyright-designs-and-patents-act-1988",
  "path": "section/51",
  "kind": "section",
  "number": "51",
  "heading": "Design documents and models.",
  "text": "(1) It is not an infringement of any copyright in a design document or model recording or embodying a design for anything other than an artistic work or a typeface to make an article to the design or to copy an article made to the design.\n(2) Nor is it an infringement of the copyright to issue to the public, or include in a film or communicate to the public, anything the making of which was, by virtue of subsection (1), not an infringement of that copyright.\n(3) In this section—\n“design” means the design of ...the shape or configuration (whether internal or external) of the whole or part of an article, other than surface decoration; and\n“design document” means any record of a design, whether in the form of a drawing, a written description, a photograph, data stored in a computer or otherwise.",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "F",
      "label": "F1",
      "text": "Words in s. 51(2) substituted (31.10.2003) by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/2498), reg. 2(1), Sch. 1 para. 8(3) (with regs. 31-40)"
    },
    {
      "type": "F",
      "label": "F2",
      "text": "Words in s. 51(3) omitted (1.10.2014) by virtue of Intellectual Property Act 2014 (c. 18), ss. 1(2), 24(1); S.I. 2014/2330, art. 3, Sch."
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/51",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T09:47:40.311838+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}