A system for the international registration of designs exists under the Hague Agreement. This enables a national of one of the states party to the Agreement to obtain protection for their designs in any of the contracting states by means of a single application. The European Union became a signatory to the Hague Agreement in January 2008 and the UK became a signatory in June 2018, enabling members of the EU and the UK to use the system to obtain registered design protection in many countries outside the EU or UK by filing a single application at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO).