Registered Community Designs: latest MARQUES review of invalidity decisions

The Fourth Edition of the MARQUES Review of Invalidity Decisions involving Registered Community Designs (RCDs) was launched by David Stone (Chair, MARQUES Designs Team) last week.

First published in January 2007, this popular and increasingly useful piece of research has gone from strength to strength. Since the Third Edition, the Invalidity Division of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has issued a further 149 decisions on the invalidity of RCDs, bringing the total number of decisions as at 1 January 2011 to 549. OHIM has also now published 152 decisions of the Third Board of Appeal on RCD-related issues including appeals from invalidity decisions.

There's more to come: the General Court has handed down four decisions on Council Regulation 6/2002. These assist greatly in the interpretation of the Regulation, particularly as they are binding on OHIM and EU Member States. Alas, substantive interpretation of the Regulation by the Court of Justice of the European Union is still awaited.  Meanwhile, decisions of national courts (including sitting as Community Design Courts) continue to show a wide degree of inconsistency.

This review is currently available to MARQUES members only.  Anyone wishing to know more about it, and about the activities of the MARQUES Design Team, should contact David Stone here.