Judgment of the General Court Second Chamber, 12 March 2025, Lidl v EUIPO – Liquidleds Lighting LED light bulbs, T-66/24

• Date: 12 March 2025
• Year: 2025

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2. COMMUNITY DESIGNS

Judgment of the Genera l Court (Second Chamber ), 12 Mar ch 2025, Lidl v EUI PO – Liquidleds

Lighting (LED light bulbs), T-66/24

Link to the full text of the judgment

Commun ity d esign – Invalidity proceedings – Registered Community design representing a LED light

bu lb – Disclosure of the earlier design not taken into account – Ar ticle 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 –

Requirements – Burden of pro of

By its judgment, the General Court dismisses the applicant’s action and clarifies the requirements for

the application of the exception according to which disclosure of a Community design by the designer

or his or her successor in title is not taken into account within the 12 months prior to the applicat ion

for registrat ion, as laid down in Article 7(2) of Regula tion No 6/2002. 36

Liquidleds Lighting Corp., the intervener, has been the proprietor of a Community design

represen ting a LE D light bulb sin ce 2017. In 2021, Lid l Vertrieb s GmbH & Co. KG, t he applicant, filed an

application fo r a declaration of inv alidity of t hat design with t he European Union Int ellectual Pro perty

Office (EUIPO) on the basis of two earlier designs. In it s decision, the Invalidity Division of EUIPO did

not, however, grant that application.

Likewise, the Board of Appeal of EUIPO dismissed the appeal brought by the applicant against that

latter d ecision, on the ground that, first , disclosure of th e first earlier design was covered by the scope

of the exception provided for in Art icle 7(2) of Regulat ion No 6/2002 and that, second, the applicant

had not dem onstrat ed disclosu re of the seco nd earlier design.

The applicant therefore brought an action for annulment before the Court against the decision of the

Board of Appeal.

Findings of the Court

In the first place, the Court rules on the application of the exception provided for in Article 7(2) of

Regulation No 6/2002. It notes that that exception applies both in relation to the requirement for

protection relating to the novelty of a design 37 and to the requirement for protection relating to its

individual character. 38 In that regard, it observes that if the lack of novelty means that an identical

design has been disclosed, the lack of individual character means that a design producing the same

overall impression on the informed user has been disclosed. It is therefore only where the exception

at issue is applied in the examination of novelty that disclosure which is likely not to be taken into

account concerns an earlier design identical t o the contested design. Although lack of individual

character may also follo w from disclosure of an identical earlier design, the requirement relating t o

individual character does not, as such, require the lack of disclosure of an identical earlier design but

that of an earlier design producing the same overall impression. Therefore, t he application of

Article 7(2) of Regulation No 6/2002, in connection with Article 6 of that regulation, does not require

that th e earlier design, disclosure of which is lik ely not t o be taken into account, b e identical to o r the

same as th e contest ed design.

Such an interpretation is apparent from the wording of that article, its context and the aims of

Regulation No 6/2002. First, the Court finds that the wording of that article does not use the word

‘identical’, nor does it refer to the concept of ‘identity’, and that the expression ‘same design’ is not

included in that provision either. Thus, that wording is confined to establishing an admittedly close

link between a registered design and an earlier design disclosed by the designer or his or her

36 Coun cil Regu lation ( EC) N o 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs (OJ 2002 L 3, p . 1).

37 For t he p ur poses of Artic le 5 of Re gula tion N o 6/2002.

38 For t he p ur poses of Artic le 6 of Re gula tion N o 6/2002.