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What am I actually trying to protect?
Different rights protect different things. This narrows down which conversation you should be having.
Design protection covers appearance, not function.
It protects shape, configuration, pattern and ornament applied to an article - judged by the eye.
- Design rights are disclosure-sensitive too. Publishing before filing can be equally fatal.
- If the appearance and the mechanism both matter, you usually need both a design registration and a patent.
- A design will not stop a competitor who achieves the same function with a different look.
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This is educational guidance, not personalised legal advice. It cannot see your documents, your dates or the prior art, and those are usually what decide the answer. Use it to understand the question, then take advice on your own facts.
Not sure whether this applies to your invention?
The honest answer usually needs someone to look at your actual disclosure, your timeline and the prior art. That is a conversation, not an article.