The assessment as to whether a design has individual character should be based on whether the overall impression produced on an informed user viewing the design clearly differs from that produced on such a user by the existing design corpus, taking into consideration the nature of the product to which the design is applied or into which it is incorporated, and in particular the industrial sector to which it belongs and the degree of freedom of the designer in developing the design.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
