Link: EUIPO erroneously declared invalid a design of a brick of a LEGO toy building set (europa.eu)

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General Court of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 48/21

Luxembourg, 24 March 2021

Judgment in Case T-515/19 Lego A/S v EUIPO and Delta Sport Handelskontor GmbH

EUIPO erroneously declared invalid a design of a brick of a LEGO toy building set

EUIPO failed to examine the relevance of the application of the exception relied on by Lego and failed to take into consideration all the features of appearance of the brick

Lego is the proprietor of the following Community design, registered on 2 February 2010, in respect of ‘building blocks from a toy building set’:

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In the context of an application for a declaration of invalidity made by Delta Sport Handelskontor, the Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) found, by decision of 10 April 2019, that all the features of appearance of the product concerned by the contested design were solely dictated by the technical function of the product, namely to allow assembly with, and disassembly from, the rest of the bricks of the set. In accordance with the provisions of the Regulation on Community Designs, 1 EUIPO therefore declared the design in question invalid. Lego brought proceedings before the General Court of the European Union seeking annulment of that decision.

The Board of Appeal identified the following features of appearance of the product: (i) the row of studs on the upper face of the brick; (ii) the row of smaller circles on the lower face of the brick; (iii) the two rows of bigger circles on the lower face of the brick; (iv) the rectangular shape of the brick; (v) the thickness of the walls of the brick and, (vi) the cylindrical shape of the studs. According to the Board of Appeal, all those features are solely dictated by the technical function of the building brick, namely to allow assembly with, and disassembly from, the rest of the bricks of the set. 

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