Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2022-03-16
R0024/2021-3
Contested design: 002873877-0002
Outcome
The contested decision is annulled, the invalidity application is rejected, and the invalidity applicant must bear the design holder’s costs and fees.
Show verbatim operative text
1. Annuls the contested decision; 2. Rejects the application for a declaration of invalidity; 3. Orders the invalidity applicant to bear the costs and fees incurred by the design holder in the invalidity and appeal proceedings.
CostsApplicant ordered to pay costs
Parties
Applicant · invalidity challenger
Datecs OODvia PDF extraction
Bulgaria (BG)
4 Datecs Street, 1784 Sophia, Bulgaria
Represented by
Holder · RCD owner
Block, Inc.via PDF extraction
United States (US)
1455 Market Street, Suite 600, San Francisco CA 94103, United States of America
Represented by
Prior art cited (3)
media player
RCD No 644 000-0004 · Community Designs Bulletin · disclosed 2007-02-06
ADR-RW5100 card reader
www.sanwa.co.jp · Internet archive capture of Sanwa website · disclosed 2013-05-03
ACS ACR38U-I1 Smart Card Reader
Undated ACS catalogue with affidavit
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›Datecs challenged the contested card-reader design for lack of novelty and individual character and for technical-function exclusions, relying mainly on prior designs D1 to D3.
- ›Block argued that D1 was a media player, D2 and D3 were not properly disclosed as prior designs, and the relevant appearance features were not exclusively dictated by technical function.
- ›The Board found D1 disclosed but visually distinct, considered D2 and D3 insufficiently proven as earlier disclosures, and rejected the Article 8 objections.
- ›The holder’s appeal succeeded; the contested decision was annulled and the invalidity application was rejected.
Deciding panel
- ChairG. Humphreys
- RapporteurC. Bartos
- MemberE. Fink
- RegistrarH. Dijkema
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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