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Court of Justice clarifies the Community design technical function provisions (DOCERAM v CeramTec)

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Published on: 08 March 2018

Published by a LexisNexis IP expert

Table of contents

What was the background?
What did the court decide?
Case details

Article summary

IP analysis: The Court of Justice has confirmed that, in order for Article 8(1) of Regulation (EC) 6/2002 to apply and prevent Community design protection for features of appearance of a product which are ‘solely dictated by its technical function’, it must be established that the technical function is the only factor which determined these features. The existence of alternative designs which fulfil the same technical function does not demonstrates that the design at issue is not dictated solely by its technical function within the meaning of Article 8(1).

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