The exclusive rights conferred by a registered EU design should be subject to an appropriate set of limitations. Apart from acts carried out privately and for non-commercial purposes and those carried out for experimental purposes, permissible use should include acts of reproduction for the purpose of making citations or acts of teaching, referential use in the context of comparative advertising, and use for the purposes of comment, critique or parody, provided that those acts are compatible with fair trade practices and do not unduly prejudice the normal exploitation of the design. Use of a registered EU design by third parties for the purposes of artistic expression should be considered to be fair as long as it is in accordance with honest practices in industrial and commercial matters. Furthermore, the rules on EU designs should be applied in a way that ensures full respect of fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular the freedom of expression.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
