Invalidity appeal · Board of Appeal · 2024-04-09
R1936/2023-3
Contested design: 008840797-0001
Outcome
The appeal is upheld: the contested decision is annulled, the case is remitted to the Invalidity Division for further prosecution, and each party bears its own costs and fees on appeal.
Show verbatim operative text
1. Annuls the contested decision; 2. Remits the case to the Invalidity Division for further prosecution; 3. Orders that each party bear its own costs and fees in the appeal proceedings.
CostsEach party bears its own costs
Parties
Applicant · invalidity challenger
FootActive Germany e.K.via PDF extraction
Germany (DE)
An der Junkerei 48m, 26389 Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Represented by
Holder · RCD owner
Dongguan Zhicheng Lighting Co., Ltd.via PDF extraction
China (CN)
No. 40, Housha Road, Qiaotou Community, Houjie Town, Dongguan City, China
Represented by
MARINOS CLEANTHOUS
Prior art cited (2)
insole
registered Community design No 5 908 761-0001 · Community Designs Bulletin · disclosed 2019-01-09
FootActive ULTRALITE insole shown on a German website / Amazon materials
German website and related Amazon.de materials
Legal grounds invoked
Argument summary
- ›The invalidity applicant appealed, arguing the Division wrongly focused on individual character, failed to assess novelty separately, and should consider additional evidence showing broader prior disclosure and design corpus.
- ›The design holder filed no reply before the Board and had also submitted no observations before the Invalidity Division.
- ›The Board admitted the additional appeal evidence, held D2 still unproven as a disclosure, but found the combined evidence established disclosure of D1, including additional views shown by Wayback Machine captures.
- ›Because the appeal evidence showed more views of D1 than the Division had compared, the Board annulled the decision and remitted the case for a fresh substantive assessment based on all relevant views.
Deciding panel
- ChairS. Stürmann
- RapporteurH. Salmi
- MemberC. Negro
- 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 ↗ |
Similar decisions
Ranked by shared Locarno class + shared legal grounds + matching outcome. Click a case to view full detail.
| Case | Date | Outcome | Shared grounds | Locarno | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1784/2022-3 | 2024-08-01 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R2238/2022-3 | 2024-01-15 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R0605/2021-3 | 2022-12-13 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R1221/2021-3 | 2022-11-23 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R1223/2021-3 | 2022-11-23 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R1220/2021-3 | 2022-06-01 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R1222/2021-3 | 2022-06-01 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |
| R0024/2021-3 | 2022-03-16 | Decision annulled | Art 25(1)(b) | — | 5 |