Judgment of the Court of Justice Fifth Chamber, 16 February 2023, Monz Handelsgesellschaft International, C-472/21

• Date: 16 February 2023
• Year: 2023

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The Court therefore holds that, by adopting the contested decision, for the purposes of ensuring

that Article 28 of the VAT Directive is implemented under unifo rm conditions throughout the

European Union, the Council did not exceed the implementing powers conferred on it by the VAT

Directive, pursuant to Article 291(2) TFEU.

V. APPROXIMATION OF LAWS

1. COMMUNITY DESIGNS

Judgment of the Court of Justice (Fifth Chamber), 16 February 2023, Monz

Handelsgesellschaft International, C-472/21

Link to the full text of the judgment

Reference for a preliminary ruling – Intellectual property – Design – Directive 98/71/EC – Article 3(3) and

(4) – Conditions for obtaining protection for a component part of a complex product – Concepts of

‘visibility’ and ‘normal use’ – Visibility of a component part of a complex product during normal use of that

product by the end user

Monz, a company incorporated under German law, is the holder of the design representing the

underside of a bicycle or motorcycle saddle that has been registered since 2011 at the Deutsches

Patent- und Markenamt (German Patent and Trade Mark Office, Germany; ‘the DPMA’).

On 27 July 2016, Büchel, a company incorporated under German law, filed an application with the

DPMA for a declaration of invalidity of that design, claiming that it did not meet the requirements for

legal protection as a design.

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In its view, that design applied to a bicycle saddle, which is a

component part of a complex product such as a bicycle or a motorcycle, was not visible during normal

use of that product.

The DPMA rejected the application for a declaration of invalidity, holding that there were no grounds

for excluding the design at issue from legal protection. It took the view that the component part to

which the design is applied remains visible during normal use of the complex product, since such

normal use covers also the disassembly and reassembly of the saddle for purposes other than

maintenance, servicing or repair work.

Hearing an action brought against that decision, the Bundespatentgericht (Federal Patent Court,

Germany) declared the design at issue invalid on the ground that it did not meet the requirements of

novelty and individual character. According to that court, a component part which is visible only when

it is separated from a complex product does not satisfy the condition of visibility and cannot therefore

benefit from that legal protection. That court is of the view, moreover, that only the acts of riding a

bicycle and getting on and off a bicycle can be considered to be normal use, and the underside of the

saddle is not visible during such use.

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For the purposes of Paragraph 4 of the Gesetz über den rechtlichen Schutz von Design (Law on the legal protection of designs) of

24 February 2014 (BGBl. 2014 I, p. 122), transposing Directive 98/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 1998 on

the legal protection of designs (OJ 1998 L 289, p. 28).