PMS International Cow Kiddee Case - Kids Travel Case

Product Information

And, if they want to change the ornamentation take separate RCDs to individuate their new ornamentation under class 32? The UK company behind Trunki ride-on suitcases for children has lost its battle in the supreme court in London, which dismissed its appeal over the design of Hong Kong rival Kiddee. saying that the overall impression between the Claimant's registered design and the Defendant's product is not the same so there is no infringement. At first instance in July 2013, the High Court ("HC") [2] found that the RCD had been infringed on the basis that the RCD and the Kiddee Case designs created the same overall impression. Whereas Arnold J had described the CRD as constituting a claim “evidently for the shape of the suitcase” and that decorations on the Kiddee Case were therefore to be ignored, Kitchin LJ’s view on the other hand was that the colouring contrasts on the CRD and the allegedly infringing articles represented a potentially significant difference.

Further, it should consider whether the differences between the Kiddee Case (a product which PMS admitted was at least inspired by the Trunki) and the CRD are sufficient to avoid design infringement. For several reasons the Court of Appeal said that the Kiddee Cases in issue had different overall impressions, being of an insect and a non-horned animal respectively. On the other hand, the Court of Appeal sanctioned the High Court ruling in Samsung v Apple [2012] EWHC 1882 (Pat) that an important feature of Apple’s design (also being filed in black and white line drawings [shown at Fig 3]) was a lack of surface decoration, which became an important differentiator between it and the alleged infringement. PMS appealed to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the High Court had incorrectly interpreted the CRD and improperly excluded various elements of the Kiddee Case from the design comparison. The registration is based on a set of images of the Trunki that are shaded greyscale CAD drawings showing a strap, the wheels, and strips of the Trunki in a darker shade than the main body.found that the correspondences between the two artworks were insufficient to amount to a reproduction of a substantial part of the Trunki artwork, although the Defendant was found to have infringed the Claimant's copyright in the Trunk safety notice. e. colour is part of a design's scope only if colour is shown in the representations] has long been well established is supported by Dr Schlötelburg’s article, in which he wrote that “where a design is shown in colours, the colours are claimed, while a black and white drawing or photo covers all colours” - [2003] EIPR 383, 385. Any advantage associated with the proposed reduction in filing fees may well be outweighed by the known difficulties in enforcing these rights, which have been further compounded by today's decision. It is a conclusion I have reached with some regret, as the conception of the Trunki, a ride-on wheeled case which looks like an animal, seems to have been both original and clever," the Judge conceded. The protection it gives extends to any design that does not produce a different overall impression on an informed user.

The High Court found that the Kiddee Case and CRD shared a number of prominent similarities (including a more sculpted and rounded design, and animal-like features) which were not featured in the 1998 prototype.

The scope of protection offered by design rights will be construed narrowly and proving design right infringement in the UK remains difficult. Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, designs, info-tech, privacy and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. In relation to this particular design it was not necessary to decide if absence of ornamentation was indeed a feature of the CRD.

Magmatic’s chief executive and founder, Rob Law, stated the company was “devastated and bewildered” by this decision. We take your privacy seriously and you can change your mailing prefe It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. It was widely accepted that Magmatic's Trunki product was a highly innovative product, which had met with significant critical and commercial success, with numerous awards for its design.This reinforced the overall impression of the Trunki case as that of a ‘horned animal’, and served to differentiate it further from the animal or insect like surface decorations on the Kiddee Case. Law, and therefore Trunki, had asked for legal protection under the Community Registered Design legislation, which only deals with designs. By contrast, the two Kiddee Case models at issue gave the impression of different creatures: the first of a ladybird, depicted by a two-toned surface with stickers replicating a ladybird’s spots; the second a tiger, depicted by stickers creating ‘stripes’ on its side and ‘whiskers’ on its front. While the judgment could be clearer on this point, it seems that its primary reason for upholding the Court of Appeal doing so was based on the overall impressions of the shapes. avoiding differences in tone in a monochrome design, to avoid giving the impression that particular parts must contrast with the overall product.

In particular, the judgment is expected to clarify the way that certain design conventions used in CRDs should be interpreted, an issue which has been decisive in a number of important Court of Appeal decisions. Lawyers and intellectual property experts said the ruling was a blow to small creative businesses in Britain that rely on design rights, and meant that designers would need to take great care when applying for protection for designs in future. Therefore, although the High Court was correct to find that the CRD covered the design in all colours due to its monochrome representation, it wrongly disregarded the colour contrasts contained within the CRD. A registered design will be infringed if another design does not produce a different overall impression on the informed user.Novelty can then be attributed to changes in ornamentation whereas the entitlement of the design corpus for novelty/individual character rights can rightfully be preserved for the prior art shape? Accordingly, while each Community Registered Design image must be interpreted in its own context, a line drawing is much more likely to be interpreted as not excluding ornamentation than a CAD image. Lawyers and many intellectual property specialists said the ruling was an enormous blow to small creative businesses in the UK that rely on design rights. Magmatic's CRD gave the impression of a horned animal while the Kiddee Case looked more like an insect with antennae or an animal with ears. Comapring the respective shapes alone, and ignoring the markings on the side and the eyes at the front, he found that there had been infringement.