The court considered whether the protection given by the section extended to part only of a registered design: ‘The question is whether, when these features [must fit and must match] have been subtracted, there is anything left in which unregistered design right could be plausibly claimed. . . Literally construed the Act would allow design right to be claimed in the design of an insignificant part – a mere ‘twiddle’, as it was put in argument. That cannot have been intended. It was accepted by Mr Onslow, who appeared for Volumatic, that to maintain a claim for infringement of the design of part of an article, the part copied must be visually significant.’
Judges:
Sir John Vinelott
Citations:
Unreported, 10 April 1995
Statutes:
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 213(6)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – A Fulton Company Limited v Totes Isotoner (UK) Limited CA 4-Nov-2003
The defendants appealed a finding that they had infringed the claimant’s unregistered design rights in collapsible umbrellas. The defendants said the law protected only the design as a whole, and that only part had been copied.
Held: Authority . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 21 June 2022; Ref: scu.188221
