PMS International Cow Kiddee Case - Kids Travel Case

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However, this ‘genericising’ (or broadening) of the design should be matched against the need for the design to be valid.

This means the design registration for the Trunki only covered the actual animal shape that was shown in the application – it did not give its owners any right to claim a monopoly in any ride-on children's luggage in the shape of any animal. There were also important differences in the contrasting wheels and strap and the presence or absence of surface decoration. This will be the first time the Supreme Court has heard a case involving the application of Community Registered Design law, and is likely to have important repercussions for the creative industries. The outcome may have been more favourable for Magmatic had they registered the design of the Trunki using simple line drawings, rather than shaded CAD drawings which, as in the Trunki case, may inadvertently highlight shading, contours, colours and ornamentation which are not actually intended to be claimed as features of the design. Dear Anon - please see Article 92 of the Community Design Regulation, in particular para 3 (reproduced below).

Clare Jackman, an IP lawyer at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said it was likely that designers would file a number of applications to protect products in future, rather than relying on just one. Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, designs, info-tech, privacy and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. As Dr Martin Schlötelburg, the co-ordinator of OHIM’s Designs Department, has written, “the selection of the means for representing a design is equivalent to the drafting of the claims in a patent: including features means claiming them”.

There are a number of options available to the designer to draw out certain important elements or disclaim unimportant ones, and line drawings, CADs and photographs will rightly continue to be used depending on what is intended to be protected. The 3D model of the cube has been lit from the top, and so the top side looks a markedly different colour to the front or other sides.

Our IP specialists work at all stage of the IP life cycle and provide strategic advice about patent, trade mark and registered designs, as well as any IP-related disputes and legal and commercial requirements. Designers should consider carefully the level of generality used when filing designs – if it is too general, a design may be invalidated by prior art and if it is too specific, there will be no protection against even very similar designs.