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EU Advocate General drills down on ‘LEGO exception’ in new opinion

By Melissa Ritti ( March 6, 2025, 14:01 GMT | Insight) -- When assessing the scope of protection owed to parts within a modular system the “overall impression” given by a design to an informed, though not necessarily expert, user remains the proper standard, EU Court of Justice Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said today. To import a requirement that modular parts should be assessed for their ability to provide a technical solution would conflate patent law with design law, according to Szpunar. The AG weighed in at the behest of the Budapest High Court, in a dispute over importation by a Hungarian company of toy bricks similar to those made by LEGO.There is no reason to depart from the “informed user” standard espoused in the 2011 case of PepsiCo v Grupo Promer Mon Graphic when assessing the level of protection owed to parts within a modular system, according to EU Court of Justice Advocate General Maciej Szpuna....

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