Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2022-10-31
R1771/2021-3
Contested design: 002692673-0005
Outcome
The appeal is dismissed, and the design holder is ordered to bear the invalidity applicant's costs and fees in the invalidity and appeal proceedings.
Show verbatim operative text
1. Dismisses the appeal; 2. Orders the design holder to bear the costs and fees incurred by the invalidity applicant in the invalidity and appeal proceedings.
CostsHolder ordered to pay costs
Parties
Applicant · invalidity challenger
A.L.B. S.P.A.via PDF extraction
Italy (IT)
Località Monti di Deu, 07029 Tempio Pausania (SS), Italy
Represented by
Holder · RCD owner
Harrogate Spring Water Ltdvia PDF extraction
United Kingdom (GB)
Harlow Moor Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG2 0QB, United Kingdom
Represented by
Prior art cited (2)
Smeraldina faceted water bottle shape
Italian 3D trade mark No 1051146 · Italian trade mark publication / 9/03 Italia Imballaggio newsletter · disclosed 2003-09-01
Smeraldina water bottle prior design with faceted hourglass body
Italia Imballaggio 7-8/14 · Italia Imballaggio · disclosed 2014-07-01
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›The design holder argued that the informed user and the restricted design freedom in the bottled-water sector made the differences in the waist, label area and facet pattern enough to create a different overall impression.
- ›The invalidity applicant maintained that its earlier Smeraldina bottle designs had long been disclosed and that the contested bottle repeated the same distinctive combination of an hourglass bottle and gemstone-like faceting.
- ›The Board accepted the earlier disclosure and held that the common bottle shape and diamond patterning dominated the overall impression, while the different waist decoration and label area did not offset that similarity.
- ›The appeal was dismissed, so the invalidity finding remained in place and the design holder had to bear the invalidity applicant's costs.
Deciding panel
- ChairG. Humphreys
- RapporteurC. Bartos
- MemberE. Fink
- Registrarp.o. N. 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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