Judgment of the Court of Justice of September 4, 2025, LEGO (C-211/24).
Facts About the Ruling
Lego A/S (hereinafter “Lego”) is the owner of EU designs No. 001950981-0001 and 002137190-0002, relating to building elements belonging to a building set, registered on November 22, 2011, and November 16, 2012, respectively, whose representations are included below:
EU Design No. 001950981-0001
EU Design No. 002137190-0002
Pozitív Energiaforrás (hereinafter “Positív”) attempted to import construction sets into Hungary that included, among other things, the building blocks shown in the second column below:
| LEGO EU Designs | Building Materials from Pozitív Energiaforrás |
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Following the complaint filed by Lego, the Hungarian Tax and Customs Administration ordered the seizure of the building sets and initiated infringement proceedings on suspicion of infringing Lego’s industrial and intellectual property rights. On June 22, 2022, Lego filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to maintain the seizure.
That request was denied by the trial court, which found that the design elements of Positív created a general impression in the informed user that was different from that of Lego’s designs.
Lego filed an appeal with the Superior Court of the Capital, which amended the previous ruling and ordered the seizure of Positív’s toys, finding that Lego’s designs did not create a general impression in the informed user that was different from that of Positív’s building blocks.
Positív filed an appeal with the Hungarian Supreme Court, which upheld the previous ruling of the Budapest High Court.
Lego then filed an infringement lawsuit against Positív in the General Court of the Capital.
That Court considered what skills are expected ofthe “informed user”referred to in Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No. 6/2002 when assessing the overall impression produced on that user by the designs referred to in Article 8(3) of that Regulation (i.e., designs that allow for the assembly or connection of multiple mutually interchangeable products within a modular system). It also addressed the interpretation of Article 89 of that Regulation and, more specifically, the scope of the term“special reasons.”
Under these circumstances, the General Court of the Capital suspended the proceedings and referred the following questions to the Constitutional Court for a preliminary ruling:
1. In a case such as the main proceedings, in which the owner invokes a design protected under Article 8(3) of Regulation No. 6/2002 with respect to one or more building blocks of a construction set manufactured by the defendant that serve the same assembly function as the blocks of the plaintiff’s design, is it consistent with Union law for courts, when determining the scope of protection, within the meaning of Article 10 of the Regulation, of the plaintiff’s design:
- are based on the assumption that a reasonable person, with regard to the function of the design and that of the product, possesses the technical knowledge that would be expected of an expert in the field;
- An “informed user” is considered to be someone who compares the plaintiff’s design with the defendant’s product through a thorough, technical, and methodical examination, and
- Do they assume that this informed user forms his or her overall impression of the design and the product primarily as a technical opinion?
2. If, in a case with the characteristics described above, it is to be concluded that the protection conferred by the plaintiff’s design extends to one or a few pieces in the defendant’s construction sets—which, however, represent a small number of building blocks in relation to the total— is it consistent with Union law to recognize a margin of discretion under which, taking into account the partial nature of the infringement, its minor severity, and its proportion relative to the goods as a whole, as well as the interests associated with the unrestricted trade of a construction set that is largely uncontroversial, reasons that are classified as “valid grounds” for the purposes of Article 89(1) of the Regulation, the court dismisses the claim seeking 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 forth its interpretation of Article 10 and Article 89(1) of Regulation No. 6/2002.
With regard to the first preliminary ruling, it concludes that Article 10 must be interpreted to mean that the scope of protection of a design under Article 8(3) must be assessed by taking into account the overall impression produced by that design on an informed user who, without being a designer or a technical expert:
- is familiar with the various designs or models that exist in the relevant industry,
- has a certain degree of knowledge about the elements typically included in such designs, and,
- Because of their interest in the products in question, they pay a relatively high degree of attention to them when using them as components of the modular system of which they are a part.
No account should be taken of the impression formed by a user who, possessing technical knowledge comparable to that of a professional, carefully examines the design in question and whose overall impression is based primarily on technical considerations.
With regard to the second question referred for a preliminary ruling, it holds that Article 89(1) must be interpreted to mean that the fact that an infringement affects only certain elements of a modular system—which are few in number relative to the system’s total components—is not covered by the concept of“special grounds,” as defined in that provision, which allows a Community design court to refrain from issuing one or more of the decisions referred to therein.
Commentary on the Court of Justice's Ruling in the LEGO Case
The judgment clarifies the referring court’s doubts as to whether, given the exceptional nature of the protection afforded to designs that allow for the multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system, the informed user should be deemed to possess technical knowledge comparable to that required under patent law.
By ruling out that possibility, the Court of Justice acknowledges that the scope oftheconceptof “informed user”in the PepsiCo v. Grupo Promer Mon Graphic judgment (C-281/10), among others, is also applicable to the context of designs under the exception in Article 8(3).
The interpretation of Article 89(1) in relation to the preliminary ruling requested is of the utmost importance, as it establishes that the fact that the infringement affects only certain elements of a modular system (in this case, certain building elements within the building set or system) does not prevent an EU design court from issuing the appropriate rulings. This allows the registered design to be enforced, even if the set contains only a few infringing elements.
Pedro Saturio, Associate Partner, Patent Practice Group