Judgment of the Court of Justice of 4 September 2025, LEGO (C-211/24).
Facts about the sentence
Lego A/S (hereinafter, Lego) is the owner of EU designs no. 001950981-0001 and 002137190-0002, relating to building elements belonging to a construction set, and registered on 22 November 2011 and 16 November 2012 respectively, representations of which are included below:
EU Design No. 001950981-0001
EU Design No. 002137190-0002
Positív Energiaforrás (hereinafter Positív) attempted to import into Hungary construction sets comprising, among others, the construction elements represented below in the second column:
LEGO EU Designs | Building elements from Pozitív Energiaforrás |
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Following a complaint filed by Lego, the Hungarian Tax and Customs Administration ordered the seizure of the construction sets and initiated infringement proceedings for suspected violation of Lego's industrial and intellectual property rights. On June 22, 2022, Lego filed a request for an injunction to maintain the seizure.
The request was denied by the court of first instance, considering that Positiv's building elements produced a different general impression on the informed user than Lego's designs.
Lego filed an appeal with the Capital High Court, which modified the previous order and ordered the seizure of Positiv's games, considering that Lego's designs did not produce a different general impression on the informed user than Positiv's building elements.
Positív filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Hungary, which upheld the previous decision of the Capital High Court.
Lego then filed an infringement action against Positív before the Capital General Court.
The Court asked itself what the expected skills of the “informed user"of Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No. 6 / 2002when it comes to assessing the overall impression produced on him by the designs of Article 8(3) of that Regulation (i.e., designs that allow the assembly or connection of multiple mutually interchangeable products within a modular system). The interpretation of Article 89 of that Regulation was also raised, and more specifically, the scope of the concept “special reasons".
In these circumstances, the General Court of the Capital suspended the proceedings and referred the following preliminary questions to the CJEU:
1. In a matter such as that in the main proceedings, in which the proprietor invokes a design protected under Article 8(3) of Regulation No 6/2002 in respect of one or more building blocks of a construction set of the defendant which fulfill the same assembly function as the blocks of the applicant's design, is a judicial practice in which courts, when determining the scope of protection, within the meaning of Article 10 of the Regulation, of the applicant's design, compatible with EU law?
- They are based on an informed user who, regarding the function of the drawing or model and that of the product, possesses the technical knowledge that can be expected of an expert in the sector;
- They consider an informed user to be one who compares the plaintiff's drawing or model and the defendant's product through a thorough, technical, and methodical examination, and
- Do they assume that this informed user forms their overall impression of the drawing or model and the product, above all, as a technical opinion?
2. In the event that, in a case with the characteristics described, it is concluded that the protection conferred by the applicant's design or model extends to one or a few pieces present in the defendant's construction sets, which, however, represent a small number of building blocks in relation to the total, is it in accordance with EU law to recognize a discretionary power whereby, taking into account the partial nature of the infringement, the minor seriousness and proportion of the infringement in relation to the goods as a whole and the interests associated with the unrestricted trade of a construction set that is, for the most part, uncontested, reasons which qualify as "well-founded grounds" for the purposes of Article 89(1) of the Regulation, the court dismisses the claim to prohibit the continued importation of the construction set into the country?
Statements on the case
The judgment examines both preliminary questions separately and sets out its interpretation of Article 10 and Article 89(1) of the Regulation no. 6/2002.
As regards the first preliminary question, it concludes that Article 10 must be interpreted as meaning that the scope of protection of a design pursuant to Article 8(3) must be assessed taking into account the overall impression produced by that design on an informed user who, without being a designer or technical expert:
- be familiar with the different designs or models that exist in the sector in question,
- has a certain degree of knowledge about the elements that those drawings or models normally contain, and
- Due to its interest in the products in question, it pays a relatively high degree of attention to using them as elements of the modular system of which they are a part.
The impression produced on a user who, having technical knowledge analogous to that of a professional, thoroughly examines the drawing or model in question and whose overall impression rests mainly on technical considerations should not be taken into account.
As regards the second preliminary question, it states that Article 89(1) must be interpreted as meaning that the circumstance that an infringement only affects certain elements of a modular system, few in number in relation to the whole of the components of that system, is not included in the concept of “special reasons”, according to that provision, which allows a Community Designs and Models Tribunal not to issue one or more of the decisions referred to.
Commentary on the judgment of the Court of Justice, LEGO
The ruling clarifies the doubts of the referring court as to whether, given the exceptional nature of the protection conferred on designs that allow the assembly or connection of multiple mutually interchangeable products within a modular system, it should be considered that the informed user should possess technical knowledge comparable to that handled in patent law.
By ruling out that possibility, the CJ admits that the scope of the concept “informed user"in the sentence PepsiCo/Promer Group Mon Graphic (C-281 / 10), among others, is also applicable to the context of the designs of the exception in Article 8, paragraph 3.
The interpretation of Article 89(1) in relation to the preliminary question referred is of paramount importance, as it establishes that the fact that the infringement only affects certain elements of a modular system (in this case, certain building elements within the game or building system) does not prevent an EU design tribunal from issuing the corresponding rulings. This allows the registered design to be enforced, even if the game only contains some infringing elements.
Pedro SaturioAssociate Partner, Patents Area
