Judgment of the Court of Justice of December 18, 2025, Deity Shoes (C-323/24).
1. Facts
Deity Shoes (hereinafter, “Deity”) is a company based in Elche that holds several EU designs for footwear. Its designs are based on catalogs from Chinese trading companies, which offer predetermined components and allow for the customization of various aspects of the footwear, such as color, material, and the placement of buckles, laces, and other decorative elements.
On December 10, 2021, Deity filed a lawsuit in Alicante Commercial Court No. 1 against Mundorama Confort and Stay Design for infringement of several registered and unregistered EU designs relating to shoes.
On April 12, 2022, the defendant companies filed a counterclaim, seeking to have those designs declared invalid. They argued that the designs in question did not involve any innovation, since Deity merely marketed products offered by Chinese trading companies, and that they did not meet the requirements of novelty and distinctiveness.
On May 24, 2022, Deity filed its answer to the counterclaim.
Commercial Court No. 1 of Alicante raised several questions regarding the interpretation of Regulation No. 6/2002 in the sector in question, and therefore decided to stay the proceedings and refer the following questions to the Supreme Court for a preliminary ruling:
“1) For a design to be protected under Regulation No. 6/2002, is it necessary for there to be a genuine design activity such that the design is the result of its creator’s intellectual effort? And, in this regard, can the combination of components based on models—whose appearance is largely predetermined by trading companies, such that modifications to certain elements must be considered isolated and incidental—be considered a genuine design activity?”
2) In light of the foregoing, … can all or part of the visual characteristics of a product resulting from the customization of designs offered by Chinese trading companies in accordance with those companies’ catalogs be considered to have a distinctive character under Article 6 of Regulation No. 6/2002, when the design owner’s activity is limited to marketing within the European Economic Area (EEA) those designs without modifications or with specific modifications to components (such as soles, rivets, laces, buckles, etc.), and the visual characteristics are largely predetermined by the trading companies? For these purposes, is it relevant that the components are not designed by the holder of the Community design either, but rather are components offered by the trading company itself in its catalog?
3) Should Article 14 [of Regulation No. 6/2002] be interpreted to mean that a person who, based on a design offered by trading companies in a catalog, has merely customized that existing design by modifying components also offered by the trader—components that were not designed by the holder of the Community design—may be considered the designer of the design? In this regard, is it necessary to demonstrate a certain degree of customization in order to show that the final form differs significantly from the original design in order to claim authorship?
4) Notwithstanding the foregoing, in a case such as this one, given the special characteristics of footwear designed based on sample books from trading companies, and to the extent that the “design” is limited to the selection of existing designs from a sample book and, where applicable, to variations in some of its components within the catalog offered by the trading company, all in accordance with fashion trends, it must be understood that such fashion trends: a) limit the designer’s freedom such that minor differences between the registered (or unregistered) design and another model may be sufficient to create a distinct overall impression or, conversely, b) affect the distinctive character of the registered (or unregistered) design such that those elements or components will have less significance in the overall impression they make on the informed user, insofar as they result from known fashion trends when compared to another model?”
2. Statements
The judgment examines the questions referred for a preliminary ruling in two separate groups: the first and third, on the one hand, and the second and fourth, on the other, setting forth its interpretation of the relevant articles of Regulation No. 6/2002.
With regard to the first and third questions referred for a preliminary ruling, the judgment concludes that Articles 4 through 6, in light of Article 14 of the Regulation, must be interpreted to mean that, in order to enjoy the protection conferred by a Community design, the owner or creator of that design is not required to demonstrate, in addition to meeting the requirements of novelty and individual character, that it results from a minimum degree of design.
With regard to the second and fourth questions referred for a preliminary ruling, the judgment concludes that Article 6 of Regulation No. 6/2002 must be interpreted to mean that the fact that certain designs exhibit visual characteristics predetermined by a model proposed in a supplier’s catalog to the creator of those designs, and that the modifications made by the designer to those designs are merely minor and relate to components proposed by that supplier, cannot, in and of itself, preclude recognition of their individual character. Furthermore, fashion trends cannot limit the designer’s degree of freedom, such that minor differences between one or more prior designs and the design at issue may be sufficient for the latter to produce a different overall impression on the informed user than that produced by those prior designs, and thus to possess individual character. The features of a design resulting from such trends cannot be of minor importance to the overall impression that the design produces on the informed user.
3. Comment
The ruling confirms that, for EU designs, there is no requirement for a genuine design activity resulting from the intellectual effort of the designer; rather, only the requirements of novelty and individual character set forth in Article 4(1) of Regulation No. 6/2002 apply.
The ruling also clarifies that, when assessing whether an EU design has individual character, the visual features of the design that stem from existing fashion trends must be evaluated in the same way as other features when comparing the overall impression the design makes on the informed user with that made by an earlier design.
The ruling is of great importance to industries with low-cost products and high sales volumes (such as“low-cost”fashion and footwear), as it confirms that the protection requirements for these industries are the same as those required of other industries, regardless of the creative process or the degree of intellectual effort expended by the creator, thereby providing legal certainty to these industries.
Pedro Saturio, Associate Partner, Trademarks Practice Group