Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2020-02-26
R0587/2019-3
Contested design: 003755016-0002
Outcome
The appeal is dismissed; the invalidity applicant is ordered to bear the design holder's costs.
Show verbatim operative text
1. Dismisses the appeal; 2. Orders the invalidity applicant to bear the costs incurred by the design holder.
CostsApplicant ordered to pay costs
Parties
Applicant · invalidity challenger
Fatboy the Original B.V.via PDF extraction
Netherlands (NL)
Het Zuiderkruis 3, NL-5215 MV 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
Represented by
Holder · RCD owner
NANJING MINGYUAN INDUSTRY CORPORATIONvia PDF extraction
China (CN)
Suoshu Industrial, Chunhua Town, Jiangning District, Nanjing 211100, People's Republic of China
Represented by
Prior art cited (1)
Inflatable lounger / chaise longue (LAMZAC design)
RCD No 2 621 904-0001 · Community Designs Bulletin · disclosed 2015-02-03
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›Invalidity applicant (Fatboy, owner of the 'LAMZAC' design) appealed rejection of its invalidity claim against inflatable sofa RCD No 3 755 016-0002, arguing the designs share the 'sewn sausage shape', kink, and closed rolled-up opening; national court decisions confirmed LAMZAC's broad scope of protection; designer's freedom is wide.
- ›Design holder (Nanjing Mingyuan) did not file observations in reply at the appeal stage.
- ›The Board found the contested RCD has a rectangular parallelepiped shape with an elevated rectangular pillow-shaped headrest in grey contrasting with the orange body and black surrounding line, clearly differing from the prior LAMZAC design's ellipsoid shape with pointed canoe-tip headrest in monochrome; these shape differences produce different overall impressions despite wide designer freedom; national court decisions are not binding.
- ›The appeal was dismissed; the contested RCD is novel and has individual character; invalidity applicant bears costs.
Deciding panel
- ChairTh. M. Margellos
- RapporteurC. Rusconi
- MemberC. Negro
- RegistrarN. Granado Carpenter
Decision files
| Language | Type | Source link |
|---|---|---|
| deDeutsch (de) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| esespañol (es) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| frfrançais (fr) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| ititaliano (it) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| enEnglish | original | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
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