Prior-art intelligence
What actually kills EU designs
Every prior-art reference the EUIPO weighed in first-instance invalidity proceedings, typed and ranked. Web disclosures — invisible to the EUIPO register — are the dominant killer. Counts are decision-level (a case citing many links counts once).
Scope: 3,431 first-instance invalidity decisions · 2,311 invalidations.
Prior-art types, by decisions that cited them
“Kill rate” = invalidations ÷ merits decisions that cited the type. “% of invalidations” = share of all 2,311 invalidations whose record cited the type (a decision can cite several types, so these sum past 100%).
Kill rate by type (≥ 20 merits decisions)
Low-volume types omitted to avoid noise. The headline finding: the types with the highest kill rates are not always the most common.
Web-disclosure deep dive
1,311 RCD invalidations — 57% of all first-instance invalidations — cited a web disclosure as prior art. None of these are visible in the EUIPO design register. The single biggest web source is Amazon, behind 629 invalidations.
Top web sources behind invalidations
Sources are canonicalised from free text (regional Amazon domains and brand/URL variants merged; “Internet Archive (Wayback Machine)” denotes an archived page, the evidentiary mechanism rather than the platform). Bar = invalidations.
Recent designs killed by a web disclosure
| Date | Case | Holder (RCD owner) | Sector | Web source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-29 | 000131605 | Wistron Industrial Co., LTD | 09 Packages & containers | fanghua steel website (fanghuasteel.com) |
| 2026-06-23 | 000130143 | Marek Lisiecki | 23 Fluid-distribution, sanitary, heating | |
| 2026-06-19 | 000108309 | TA Towers ApS | 25 Building units & construction | flickr (lagerwey account), YouTube |
| 2026-06-19 | 000108310 | TA Towers ApS | 25 Building units & construction | flickr (lagerwey account), YouTube |
| 2026-06-17 | 000130021 | Λαριπλαστ Αεβε | 07 Household goods | clairejustineoxox.com, Instagram |
| 2026-06-15 | 000131364 | Taizhou Huirun Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. | 20 Sales & advertising equipment | Instagram, Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) |
| 2026-06-15 | 000131365 | Taizhou Huirun Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. | 20 Sales & advertising equipment | Amazon |
| 2026-06-15 | 000131344 | Taizhou Huirun Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. | 20 Sales & advertising equipment | Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) |
| 2026-06-11 | 000130546 | Beston Metal S.R.L. | 25 Building units & construction | |
| 2026-06-10 | 000130925 | Deyu Capital S.r.L. | 32 Graphic symbols & logos | Amazon |
| 2026-06-09 | 000132124 | Hong Zheng | 28 Pharmaceutical & cosmetic | Amazon |
| 2026-06-09 | 000132105 | Hong Zheng | 28 Pharmaceutical & cosmetic | Amazon |
| 2026-06-05 | 000132585 | Le Zhao | 06 Furnishing | Amazon |
| 2026-06-05 | 000132506 | Realty smart sl | 26 Lighting apparatus | Amazon |
| 2026-06-04 | 000132507 | Hangzhou Deelux Lighting CO., LTD. | 26 Lighting apparatus | Amazon |
| 2026-06-04 | 000128198 | Brand New Michał Pietraś | 19 Stationery | YouTube |
| 2026-06-03 | 000129321 | Meinhard Mombauer | 03 Travel goods & cases | Amazon |
| 2026-06-02 | 000132485 | Novowise Ltd | 03 Travel goods & cases | Amazon |
| 2026-05-26 | 000132264 | Shandong Qiyue Environmental Protection Technology Co.,Ltd | 23 Fluid-distribution, sanitary, heating | YouTube |
| 2026-05-21 | 000131404 | Jiahe Lin | 06 Furnishing | Amazon |