The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced today with a press release that the first Japanese company has registered an industrial design internationally by taking advantage of the Hague Agreement.

Turns out that said company is Sony Computer Entertainment, and the design is PlayStation VR.

The Hague Agreement governs the international registration of industrial design. Adopted in 1925, it established an international system (the Hague system), allowing designs to be protected in multiple countries with minimal formalities. Japan adopted the Hague Agreement quite late, though, and precisely only on May 13th of this year.

Sony jumped at the chance, and took the opportunity to register the design of the PlayStation VR, filling a request precisely on May 13th. The registration has now been published (on November 13th), and is available for everyone to check out by searching the registration number 086527 on the WIPO Global Design Database.  You can check out all the registered schematics in the gallery at the bottom of the post.

The registration is valid in the European Union, Africa, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Singapore and Turkey. Interestingly, it explicitly mention that intellectual property protection is sought only for the elements in solid lines, and not for those in broken lines (which are probably too generic to be registered).