YSL designs have individual character!

The company H&M Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) opposed the registration of two handbag designs by the fashion company Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) as Community designs. H&M was of the opinion that the designs lacked individual character, meaning they were already known to the public before the application for registration of the design with the OHIM. The European Court of Justice took a different view on this matter.

In 2006, the OHIM approved for registration two designs intended for application to handbags of the company Yves Saint Laurent. Thereupon, the company Hennes & Mauritz filed two applications with the Harmonization Office for the Internal Market for a declaration of invalidity of the designs registered for YSL. H&M justified this with the argument that the YSL designs lacked any individual character.

A design lacks individual character if the overall impression produced by the design on the informed user does not differ from the overall impression of other, previously known designs. This was the case here as Hennes & Mauritz possessed older similar designs which would oppose the registration of the Community designs by YSL.

Decision of the Court

With Judgment of 10.09.2015 – Az. T-525/13, the Court of the European Union dismissed H&M's action.

The CFI decided that the designs of YSL's bags possessed the necessary individual character. This was assessed taking into account the degree of freedom in design that the designer had in creating the design.

The design of the YSL bags differed here from the H&M designs through three features which had a decisive effect on their overall appearance. Form, structure and surface design were new and possessed individual character. The designs of the handbag designs by YSL therefore produced a different overall impression on informed users than the designs by H&M.

Conclusion

The assessment of individual character, that is, the novelty of the design to be registered, is regularly a very difficult task. In principle, it holds that the distance to existing designs must be greater if the degree of freedom in design that the designer of a product has is greater.