7. Legal aspects

The legal aspects concern two main areas:

• the relationship between the designer's professional activity and its industrial clients;

• industrial protection for innovation and creation.

This approach can be summed up in the legal provisions governing either :

• the production of liberalities: liberal practice of the professional with his client ;

• the jurisdiction in force in commercial courts, in particular company law.

The creative activity of designers is essentially the provision of a work of the mind. In practice, the design service provider is sometimes entrusted with the management of a project; this must be clearly specified. The...