EU Court of Justice: the protection of utility objects offered by copyright is subject to the same requirements as for other objects.

Two furniture manufacturers allege, before the courts in Sweden and Germany respectively, that two furniture dealers infringed their copyright in relation to certain pieces of furniture.

The Swedish manufacturer Galleri Mikael & Thomas Asplund considers that the dining tables, marketed by the Swedish group Mio, bear considerable similarities to the tables produced by it and that, as works of applied arts, they are protected by copyright.

The Swiss manufacturer USM U. Schärer Söhne complains that the German online trader Konektra offers a furniture system that is identical to a modular furniture system which it produces and which, as a work of the applied arts, is protected by copyright.

The Stockholm Court of Appeal and the German Federal Court of Justice have asked the Court of Justice about the conditions under which an object of utility can constitute a work of applied art and thus benefit from the protection offered by copyright.

In the judgment in Joined Cases C-580/23 | Mio and Others and C-795/23 | konektra the Court recalls that, in certain cases, an object may be protected both as a design or as a work under copyright. In that regard, it states that there is no relationship of rule and exception between those two distinct types of protection. With regard to protection as a work under copyright, the originality of objects of applied art must be assessed according to the same requirements applied to assess that of other types of objects. An object that reflects the personality of its author, manifesting the free and creative choices of the latter, constitutes a work, within the meaning of copyright. Choices dictated by various constraints, in particular technical, are not part of it. This also applies to choices which, although free, do not bear the imprint of the author's personality, giving said object a unique appearance. The author's intentions during the creative process, his sources of inspiration, the use of already available forms, the possibility of such an independent creation or the recognition of the same object by specialized circles can, possibly, be taken into account. However, such circumstances are, in any event, neither necessary nor decisive for establishing the originality of the subject-matter.

In order to establish a copyright infringement, it is necessary to determine whether creative elements of the protected work have been recognisably reproduced in the allegedly infringing object. The general visual impression created by the two conflicting objects and the degree of originality of the work are not relevant. The mere possibility of such creation cannot justify the denial of protection.