Individual character must be evaluated by one or more individually considered earlier designs

19-08-2014 Print this page
IPPT20140619, CJEU, Karen Millen Fashions v Dunnes Stores

DESIGN LAW

 

Individual character must not be evaluated on the basis of a combination of isolated features from a number of earlier designs, but by one or more individually considered earlier designs
 

"35. that Article 6 of Regulation No 6/2002 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order for a design to be considered to have individual character, the overall impression which that design produces on the informed user must be different from that produced on such a user not by a combination of features taken in isolation and drawn from a number of earlier designs, but by one or more earlier designs, taken individually."

 

Right holder of an unregistered Community design is not required to prove that it has individual character, but need only indicate what constitutes the individual character in his view
 

"47. that Article 85(2) of Regulation No 6/2002 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order for a Community design court to treat an unregistered Community design as valid, the right holder of that design is not required to prove that it has individual character within the meaning of Article 6 of that regulation, but need only indicate what constitutes the individual character of that design, that is to say, indicates what, in his view, are the element or elements of the design concerned which give it its individual character."

 

IPPT20140619, CJEU, Karen Millen Fashions v Dunnes Stores

 

C345/13 - ECLI:EU:C:2014:2013