Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2022-05-20
R1672/2021-3
Contested design: 008043228-0001
Outcome
The appeal is dismissed, and the invalidity applicant must 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
Cyprian Iwućvia PDF extraction
MT
apt . 4071, 110 The Strand, Sliema SLM 1020, Malta
Represented by
Tomasz Marcin Kos
Holder · RCD owner
Hangzhou XiangHui International Trading Co., Ltd.via PDF extraction
China (CN)
Room 612, No. 100, Changhe Road, Changehe street Binjiang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China
Represented by
Prior art cited (4)
socks set arranged as a pizza in a packaging box
RCD No 4 506 947-0001 · Community Designs Bulletin · disclosed 2018-01-15
pizza socks box product page
Amazon listing for 'PIZZA SOCKS BOX' · Amazon · disclosed 2016-12-06
social-media post showing pizza socks
Rainbow Socks Instagram post · Instagram · disclosed 2017-11-25
social-media post showing pizza socks
Rainbow Socks Facebook post · Facebook · disclosed 2018-12-31
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›The invalidity applicant argued that the contested pizza-socks design was not new because its own Pizza Socks Box product had been disclosed earlier through an RCD, Amazon listings and social-media posts.
- ›The design holder filed no response in the appeal proceedings.
- ›The Board held that bare hyperlinks to Amazon pages were insufficient evidence of disclosure and that the earlier RCD, although validly disclosed, was materially different in sock patterns, colours, arrangement and box shape from the contested design.
- ›The appeal was dismissed and the rejection of the invalidity application was upheld.
Deciding panel
- ChairG. Humphreys
- RapporteurH. Salmi
- MemberS. Rizzo
- RegistrarH. Dijkema
Decision files
| Language | Type | Source link |
|---|---|---|
| frFrench | human translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| deDeutsch (de) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| esespañol (es) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| ititaliano (it) | machine translated | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
| enEnglish | original | Download original from EUIPO ↗ |
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