Although Patents and Industrial Designs are generally grouped under Industrial Intellectual Properties, they completely vary from each other fundamentally in terms of the their respective scope of protection. While a patent offers protection for the underlying 'mechanism' of an invention, a design protects the outer look or appearance of the article.

For example, a novel mechanism for functioning of a clock with respect to its constructional features and technological advancement can be a patentable subject-matter (owing to the satisfaction of other patentability criteria). However, the outer aesthetic features of the clock as a whole can be protected by the industrial design registration.

Sometimes purchase of articles for use is influenced not only by their practical efficiency but also by their appearance. The most important purpose of protecting an article by way of industrial designs ensures that the artisan, creator, originator of that design having aesthetic look is not deprived of his/her bona fide reward by others applying it to their goods.