| Abstract [eng] |
Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs introduced a new legal instrument – the Community design. Before that, the essential legal aspects of design law were harmonized by Directive 98/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 1998 on the legal protection of designs. Regulation provides protection for design which meets two conditions: novelty and individual character. Both criteria are ambiguous in their application, among other things it is required to disclosure other legal concepts which are not elaborated by Regulation: the informed user, the designer's freedom, the overall impression. Due to vague criterions the differences between the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market and the Community courts’ case law emerges, which in turn determines the unequal levels of protection of Community design throughout the European Union. This problem requires evaluation of both the Office and the courts’ case law in order to determine what requirements are treated different or the same, and moreover, how such concepts appear in context of the doctrine. Master thesis deal with the most common grounds for invalidity of the Community design. This choice is determined by the circumstance, that grounds for invalidity define the limits of validity of the design because the Office only carries out only the examination of formal requirements (compliance with the definition of design and public order and good morals). The most important decisions of Office and the Community design courts relating to the above-mentioned criteria for the assessment and application are provided, positions in these cases are commented and it is also indicated what should be the real concept of one or the other criterion. |
