Animated designs revisited – a case study under EU design law

Abstract

In view of the ongoing extensive review of EU design law and given the expected abandoning of the current seven-view limit, revisiting protection of animated designs under EU law and practice (and limits to such protection), particularly against the famous-infamous Candy Crush Graphical User Interface (GUI) dispute, allows for some fascinating conclusions with respect to a proper distinction between ‘partial designs’ and ‘parts of a design’, the correct identification of the relevant prior art, the determination of the subject matter of a design, and the finding of infringement. Overall, ‘less’ is apparently ‘more’.