SPECIAL ASPECTS OF THE EXPERT`S EXAMINATION OF DESINGS WITH RESPECT TO CHANGES TO LEGISLATION

Abstract

The Draft Law on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Strengthening Protection of Rights to Trademarks and Industrial Designsand Combating Patent Trolling N 2258 of October 11, 2019 provides for changes in the interpretation of the scope of rights for an industrial design. According to the proposed changes, the scope of rights for a registered industrial design is supplemented by the following: the scope of legal protection of an industrial design includes any other industrialdesign that does not make an disparate general impression on the informed user. To determine the scope of legal protection, the degree of freedom of the author (designer) is taken into account during the creation of an industrial design. The degree of freedom of the author is a new criterion that must be taken into account when determining the scope of rights to assess the individual character of an industrial design.The degree of freedom of the author is determined by Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs (Section 2, Article 10 of the Regulation). The definition of this criterion and its impact on the scope of rights depends on the design techniques adopted in the industry in which the product can be used, the appearance of which is the subject of an industrial design, i.e. depends on the nature and purpose of the product. The degree of freedom of the author, as a rule, is limited to the elements of the product, the appearance of which is due to technical and functional requirements. The list of elements of an industrial design, which form the general impression, depends on a certain degree of freedom of the author. Given that this criterion is completely new in thenational legislation on the protection of rights to an industrial design and requires certain approaches to its definition, it is appropriate to review the case law of the European Union in the field of protection of design rights.The main purpose of this article is to analyze this practice to determine a degree of freedom of the author for industrial designsbelonging to different type and for different purposes, as well as the impact of a certain degree of freedom of the author on the overall impression for the informed user.