Affirming the recommendation of Advocate General Szpunar, the CJEU has ruled on the approach to the informed user and special circumstances that can be taken into account when considering Registered Community Designs for modular systems, under Article 8(3) of the Community Design Regulation[1]. 

The ruling clarifies that the informed user need not be a designer or technical expert who bases their overall impression on technical considerations and that “special reasons” for the purposes of Article 89(1) does not include the fact that an infringement relates only to some of the pieces of a modular system, even if that number is small in relation to the total number of components of that system (Case C-211/24 LEGO A/S v Pozitív Energiaforrás Kft (ECLI:EU:C:2025:648) (4 September 2025)).

The building blocks: relevant law

Article 8(2) of the Community Design Regulation (the “Regulation”) states that no registered community design (RCD) protection shall be given to: 

"… features of appearance of a product which must necessarily must necessarily be reproduced in their exact form and dimensions in order to permit the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its function."

However, there is a limited exception in Article 8(3) which allows protection for "… a design serving the purpose of allowing the multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system." The scope of protection of an RCD includes any design which does not produce a different overall impression on the informed user (Article 10(1)). When assessing the scope of protection, the degree of freedom of the designer is considered (Article 10(2)).

Article 89(1) of the Regulation provides for the Court to order certain sanctions in cases where it has found infringement, including injunctive relief and seizure, unless there are “special reasons” not to do so.

Facts

Lego was the owner of two RCDs (the "Lego RCDs") for: 

1. A coupling component of a toy building set, comprising a cylinder with studs and two cross-section axles, perpendicular to each other and to the cylinder, which were connected to the cylinder through a cylindrical base:

2. A coupling component of a toy building set which was a modified variant of the Lego 2x1 studded brick, which had 2x1 studs on one of its sides:

Hungarian proceedings

Lego brought infringement and injunction proceedings against Pozitív Energiaforrás Kft. ("Pozitiv"), a Hungarian company which had sought to import toy building sets comprising building blocks, some of which allegedly infringed the Lego RCDs. 

The Budapest High Court referred two questions to the CJEU on the scope of protection for RCDs under Articles 8(3) and 10 of the Regulation. 

The first question: scope of protection for RCDs under Article 8(3)

The first question was divided into three parts, and asked whether, when determining the scope of protection to be given to an RCD under Articles 8(3) and 10 of the Regulation, a domestic court could:

1. use as its reference point, an informed user who, with regard to the function of both the design and the product, possessed the technical knowledge to be expected of a sectoral expert;
2. consider an informed user to be one who compared the applicant’s design and the defendant’s product by carrying out a thorough, technical and methodical examination; and
3. assume that the informed user’s overall impression of the design and of the product was formed primarily of a technical opinion.

In other words, would the informed user for the purposes of Article 8(3) be different to the informed user for the purposes of Article 6 and 10? 

The second question: “special reasons” not to order sanctions under Article 89(1)

The second question asked whether, if an RCD extended to (and infringement was found over) only one or a small number of pieces within an infringer’s toy building sets, the Court had discretion to refuse to order certain measures under the “special reasons” caveat in Article 89(1). 

Here, Pozitiv claimed the special reasons included (a) the partial nature of the infringement, (b) the limited severity and extent of the infringement in relation to the product as a whole, and (c) the interests of ensuring unrestricted trade in a toy building set which, for the most part, was not contested.

The Advocate General’s opinion

Advocate General Spzunar’s opinion (the AG) (covered by us in a separate piece here) only answered the first question, recommending that the CJEU find that:

• the informed user lay somewhere between the average consumer and a sectoral expert with detailed technical expertise – so a domestic court could not use the latter as its reference point;
• that even in modular system design cases, the informed user could not be assumed to have technical knowledge, and technical aspects should not impact their overall impression; and
• in assessing the scope of protection, it was permissible to consider the degree of the designer’s freedom, including in developing the features of the product’s appearance that were necessary for interconnection.

CJEU ruling

First question

The CJEU noted that, while the modular systems provision in Article 8(3) of the Regulation was a limited exception to the must fit exclusion in Article 8(2), that did not mean that the “different overall impression” test in Article 10 did not apply to it. The impression consisted of the product resulting, in particular, from the features listed in Article 3(a).

The CJEU agreed that the informed user lay between the average consumer and a sectoral expert. Under both Article 10 and Article 8(3), this meant a user who (as is well established in case law): 

• was particularly observant (rather than having average attention), either because of their personal experience or extensive sectoral knowledge;
• was “informed”, in that they knew the various designs which existed in the sector concerned, possessed a certain degree of knowledge of the normal features in those designs; and
• as a result of their interest in the products concerned, showed a relatively high degree of attention when using them.

While the relatively high level of attention of the informed user was likely to vary by sector, it was not necessary to consider the perception of a user who was a specialist with detailed technical expertise, nor should the overall impression produced on them  be formed primarily of a technical opinion.

The CJEU further agreed that while the degree of the designer’s freedom was to be taken into account in assessing the “informed user” and their “overall impression”, the likelihood of minor differences between the designs impacting on the overall impression increased where the designer’s freedom was restricted, and vice versa.

As a result, where that design freedom was restricted by a high number of features of appearance which were solely dictated by the product’s technical function, the presence of minor differences may suffice to produce a different overall impression.

However, to give effect to the Article 8(3) exception and its purpose of encouraging innovation  of new products, the informed user’s overall impression under Article 10 had to take into account the presence of interconnecting components under Article 8(3). 

Therefore, where there were no sufficiently significant differences in the overall appearance of the designs, the finding of a different overall impression could be precluded by the existence of connection points with the same form and dimensions, for the purposes of assembling or connecting mutually interchangeable products within a modular system. 

As a result, the CJEU concluded that it was not necessary for the informed user to possess technical knowledge similar to that expected of a sectoral expert, to examine the design down to the smallest detail, or to base their overall impression primarily on technical considerations.

Second question

The CJEU recalled that the concept of “special reasons” under Article 89(1) required a strict and uniform interpretation across the EU legal order, as well as to be applied to the specific factual circumstances in each case. 

As a result, that concept could relate only to exceptional situations which, in light of the specific conduct alleged against the third party - in particular, the impossibility of that third party to proceed with the alleged infringing acts – meant that the court was not required to issue an order prohibiting that third party from proceeding with such acts (i.e. an injunction). 

Accordingly, in answer to the second question, the fact that an infringement related only to some pieces of a modular system (here, of the toy set) which were small in number compared to the total number of components in that system, was not itself covered by the concept of “special reasons” prohibiting the court from ordering an injunction. 

Comment

The CJEU’s decision on the first question, concurring with the AG, reaffirms the central importance in registered design law of a product’s appearance, rather than its technical aspects, even in modular systems cases under Article 8(3). 

In that respect, it is not surprising that the informed user should not be expected to have technical knowledge or sectoral expertise.

The CJEU also offers some clarity on the meaning of “special reasons”, finding that a relatively small number of infringing pieces in a larger modular system will not itself constitute “special reasons” that could help an infringer escape enforcement measures in Article 89(1).