Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2021-04-23
R1373/2020-3
Contested design: 006373684-0011
Outcome
The appeal is dismissed and the design holder must bear the invalidity applicant's costs in the invalidity and appeal proceedings.
Show verbatim operative text
1. Dismisses the appeal; 2. Orders the design holder to bear the costs incurred by the invalidity applicant in the invalidity and appeal proceedings.
CostsHolder ordered to pay costs
Parties
Applicant · invalidity challenger
LEGO Juris A/Svia PDF extraction
Denmark (DK)
Koldingvej 2, 7190 Billund, Denmark
Represented by
Holder · RCD owner
MAR 2000 OODvia PDF extraction
Bulgaria (BG)
JK ‘Nadejda’, 5, Stefanson str., 1220 Sofia, Bulgaria
Represented by
Prior art cited (2)
toy packaging for LEGO set 41 153 'Ariel's Royal Celebration Boat'
ASIN B075SVV19R · Amazon.es · disclosed 2018-01-07
packaging for set 41 153 'Ariel's Royal Celebration Boat'
LEGO Customer Catalogue January-June 2018 · LEGO Customer Catalogue · disclosed 2018-01-01
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›The design holder appealed the invalidation of its packaging design, arguing that LEGO had not reliably proved disclosure of the earlier packaging and that toy boxes are constrained to standard parallelepiped forms with limited design freedom.
- ›The invalidity applicant maintained that multiple public sources, especially the Amazon.es listing for product No 41 153, proved earlier disclosure and that the contested packaging was virtually identical to LEGO's earlier toy-box design.
- ›The Board accepted public disclosure of the earlier design, treated the confidential distributor catalogue only as corroborative, and found that the few differences between the boxes — mainly wording and a slightly different princess rendering — were not decisive because the overall composition and visual appearance were otherwise practically identical.
- ›The appeal was dismissed; the contested RCD remained invalid for lack of individual character and the design holder was ordered to bear costs.
Deciding panel
- ChairG. Humphreys
- RapporteurH. Salmi
- MemberA. Szanyi Felkl
- Registrarp.o. R. Vidal
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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