Earlier this year, the Court of Appeal of Milan upheld a 2015 ruling by the Court of Milan which recognized copyright protection of the concept store of Kiko, the Italian make-up brand, and blocked competitor Wycon from using similar store decor in its shops. (Court of Appeal decision no. 1543/18, Kiko-Wycon, March 26, 2018).

Kiko’s project of the concept store, realised by an architect, featured an innovative style, which is both minimalist and highly distinctive. On the basis of this project, Kiko opened several stores.

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The Court of Florence last October 25, 2017 issued a decision prohibiting a travel agency to commercially use the image of Michelangelo’s David without the authorization of the “Galleria dell’Accademia”, (Galleria) the museum where the sculpture is located.

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The CJEU recently ruled on the scope of the repair clause in the Design Regulation. In a guest post, Fabio Angelini of the MARQUES Designs Team and his colleague Domenico Demarinis analyse the judgment in the Acacia cases

On 20 December 2017 the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled on joined cases C-397/16 and C-435/16, referred to the CJEU by the Court of Appeal of Milan (Italy) and by the Bundesgerichtshof (Germany). These cases concern proceedings brought by Audi and Porsche against Acacia Srl, an Italian manufacturer of wheel rims for cars allegedly infringing Audi’s and Porsche’s Community designs.

Three main issues

Acacia wheel rims for Audi cars
The CJEU was called to decide three main sets of issues.

First it had to decide whether or not the “repair clause” (Article 110(1) of the Community Design Regulation) is dependent upon the appearance of the complex product. In other words, is it applicable only to those components of a complex product whose shape is necessarily dictated by such product (for instance the hood of a particular kind of car, or the arm of a pair of sunglasses) or does it include other parts, such as wheel rims, which may be manufactured in all possible ways since their shape does not necessarily depend on that of any particular kind of car?

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Design

1. The Community Design is regulated by the Regulation No. 6/2002. It is obvious that the reproduction of a registered/non-registered Community design constitutes
   direct infringement. A more discussed issue is the enforceability of a Community design against the reproduction of the same in the files to be used in the 3D
   printing process.
2. Other relevant issues are the scope of the private use exception and the protection of spare parts that can be easily printed with a 3D printer.
3. At European level there is no harmonization of the contributory infringement. In its 2016 design report the EU Commission has recommended the possibility of introducing a provision on contributory infringement, resembling the one under patent law.

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