The Court of Appeal (overturning the High Court) has ruled that a modular design for builders’ trestles scaffolding structures was validly registered. The registration constituted a single design, despite apparent differences in the colour of certain components, or that some components were integral and others were optional (Safestand Ltd v Weston Homes PLC & Ors [2025] EWCA Civ 374 (02 April 2025)). 

Facts

The claimant, Safestand Limited (Safestand) was a manufacturer of builders’ trestles, which were a modular scaffolding system designed to assist with low-level construction and maintenance of buildings. 

Together with patent protection, Safestand’s system comprised three re-registered designs (RRDs), as depicted below. (The designs were originally registered as Registered Community Designs.) Safestand brought patent and design infringement claims against the defendants (Weston). 

Safestand’s design

Weston’s system

High Court ruling

In December 2023, the High Court upheld the patent infringement claim. However, it dismissed the registered design infringement claim and found the RRDs to be invalidly registered under the Registered Designs Act 1949 (the Act), on the basis that they did not depict a single design and lacked clarity. In particular, all of the RRDs featured multiple ‘alternative embodiments’, as some components differed in colour and/or were optional in the system. (For further details see our article on the High Court’s ruling,  here.)

Safestand appealed against the High Court’s ruling on the invalidity of the RRDs, arguing that it was wrong to hold that: (1) each of the RRDs were not for a single product; and (2) the RRDs lacked clarity.

At the appeal hearing, the Comptroller-General of Patents was invited to assist the Court of Appeal, making submissions on issues including applications depicting products with multiple components, the relevance of colour in applications, and lack of clarity.

Relevant law

Under section 11ZA(1)(b) of the Act, a registered design may be declared invalid where it does not fulfil the definition of a "design" in section 1(2) of the Act – i.e., the appearance of the whole or part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, lines, contours, shape, texture, materials or ornamentation. 

The meaning of ‘a product’ in section 1(2) has been interpreted as requiring that a design must be for a single product, as opposed to different embodiments of the same design concept. 

In this context, case law has established that, for products which encompass a set of articles/items, the test is whether those articles are linked by aesthetic and functional complementarity and are usually marketed as a unitary product (Case T-9/15 Ball Beverage Packaging Europe Ltd v EUIPO (ECLI:EU:T:2017:386)). However, the design of a single product may include items whose use is optional (Case T-357/12 Sachi Premium-Outdoor Furniture Lda v OHIM (Trade Marks and Designs) (ECLI:EU:T:2014:55)). 

Case law has also established the principle of “unicity of design”. This means that applications or registrations which use multiple images must show a single design, with no "insoluble inconsistencies" or "insurmountable contradictions" between them (Case T-25/23: Orgatex GmbH & Co. KG v EUIPO (ECLI:EU:T:2024:725)).

Modular products are, in principle, an acceptable type of single product, where they comprise a set of standardised parts or units from which that product is assembled.

Court of Appeal’s ruling

The Court of Appeal allowed Safestand’s appeal, finding that each of the RRDs depicted a singular modular product, and did not lack clarity. The RRDs were therefore validly registered under the Act.

(Arnold LJ gave the principal judgment, with whom Asplin and Elisabeth Laing LJJ agreed.)

Ground one: did the RRDs depict single products?

The trial judge considered that none of the RRDs had depicted a single product but instead featured "alternative embodiments" in certain components. For some components, such as brackets, frames and handrails, the images showed that it was possible for these to be two different colours, such as red or green, yellow or red, and yellow or blue. For other components, such as a ladder holder extension, the images showed these could be either present or absent, or that their use within the product was optional. 

Safestand argued that the images should be interpreted in a way that showed a single design, and that there was nothing "insolubly inconsistent or insurmountably contradictory" between them. Where images showed the possibility of two different colours, that meant that both colours were present in the product. Where images showed that a component could be present or absent, that did not mean there were "alternative embodiments" of the product, as opposed to a single product where the use of one part was optional.

Arnold LJ accepted virtually all of Safestand’s arguments. He found it "telling" that the High Court’s judgment made no reference to the modular quality of the design. This was confirmed by inspection of Safestand’s product, photographs from which were put in evidence. Even the possibility of different numbers of brackets of either colour within the system, which could have caused doubt on validity, did not give rise to different products, given the modular nature of the system. Other discrepancies were minor enough so as not to constitute insoluble inconsistencies or insurmountable contradictions.

Ground two: lack of clarity

Arnold LJ observed that, while lack of clarity was a ground of refusal to register a design under section 1(2) of the Act, it was not a ground as such for invalidating an existing registered design, as it was not part of the exclusive list of grounds under section 11ZA. 

Arnold LJ thought that this issue was important, although it was not necessary to decide it in this case, so he would assume for this appeal’s purposes that lack of clarity was a ground of invalidity.

Even if it was, Arnold LJ held that the RRDs were not unclear. This was because the trial judge had only found the RRDs lacked clarity to the extent that it was not reasonably clear that they were each for a single product. This was the first ground of Safestand’s appeal, above, which Arnold LJ had already upheld.

Takeaways

The High Court’s decision on the design aspects of this scaffolding case no longer stands upright, the trial judge’s views of the images having been found not to stack up properly. 

In particular, it seems the trial judge and Arnold LJ were poles apart on whether the possibility of certain components being of two different colours, or of being present or absent, was sufficient to prevent the finding of a single design. On these points, Arnold LJ found the modular nature of Safestand’s system meant these differences were relatively minor, and therefore acceptable for showing a single product. 

However, designers should not look at this ruling and assume that this will always lead to such discrepancies being found acceptable for the purposes of showing a single design. Arguably, much of it turned on the particular facts and circumstances of this case, such as Arnold LJ’s own view of the images, which happened to accord with that of the designer, Safestand. 

The practical takeaways for designers are to always ensure, when relying on multiple images in a design registration, that the images supplied are as clear and comprehensive as possible.  It is important to review each image carefully so that components and their features, such as colours, are explicitly and consistently presented. 

So, while this ruling turned heavily on its facts, it does provide some useful lessons for designers to build on. With or without scaffolding!