Phillips Electronics NV v Remington Consumer Products Ltd, 2002, ECR, I-5475
Citation: Phillips Electronics NV v Remington Consumer Products Ltd, 2002, ECR, I-5475
Rule of thumb: Where a design is purely a technical & functional improvement, can this obtain design protection? No, where the advancement is purely a technical one then this is not appropriate for design law.
Judgment:
The Court held that where it is a function which carries out a technical function, then it cannot be registered as a design – the purpose of designs is to register the shape of products that are aesthetically pleasing or convey a certain style, rather than a technical function. The facts of this case were that a three headed shaver head was under dispute. The Court held that arguments about the design being functional were not as relevant the distinctiveness of how it looked. The ECJ said, ‘an aim... in the public interest... (is that)... a shape whose essential characteristics perform a technical function and were chosen to fulfil that function may be freely used by all’ (para 80).
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