EUIPO
upholds design of a
toilet.
EUIPO
upholds design of a
toilet.
of
How precisely do the views of a design need to align with one another? And what happens if a dashed line in one of seven drawings is suddenly drawn as a solid line?
A toilet bench from 2003
The U.S.-based company Thetford LLC is the owner of a registered EU design for a so-called toilet bench. This refers to a box-shaped toilet module. The application dates back to 2003, and the design has been renewed since then.
The design is depicted in seven line drawings. They show the product in an oblique view, from the front and back, from both sides, and from above and below. The lid, internal components, and the interior of the bowl are shown as dashed lines. Dashed lines serve as a “disclaimer”—that is, a visual indication that no protection is claimed for these parts. Under design law, only what is shown in the registered views is protected.
Six objections in seven drawings
On February 22, 2024, the Chinese company Jiangsu Sanjo Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. filed a request with the EUIPO to declare the design invalid. It argued that the views did not depict a single product. A design whose views depict different objects does not meet the legal definition of a design and may be declared invalid.
The applicant listed six discrepancies. In the oblique view, the rear edge of the lid is shown as a solid line, whereas in two other views it is shown as a dashed line. The curvature lines on the front show eight in one view and nine in another, some straight and some curved. The top view shows a drain opening, while the side view does not. Furthermore, the same side edge runs downward in one view and upward in another.
The owner considered the deviations to be minor. They primarily concerned parts for which no claims had been made and resulted from different viewing angles. Furthermore, the design had been filed on paper. The Invalidity Division rejected the request on May 21, 2025. The applicant filed an appeal against this decision on July 18, 2025.
Appeals Board upholds the design
The EUIPO Board of Appeal dismissed the appeal in its decision dated March 5, 2026—Case No. R 1283/2025-3. The design therefore remains registered.
Due to the filing date, the Board still applied the substantive provisions of the earlier Community Design Regulation. However, the new Regulation (EU) 2024/2822 already applied to the proceedings.
When are the views of a design contradictory?
In the Chamber’s view, only the registered views determine the scope of protection. They must be read in context. Minor deviations are acceptable as long as the views can be combined to form a single design. The Board thus followed the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding floor markings. It summarized the standard as follows:
As long as the various views do not clearly contradict one another, there is no reason to assume that they do not refer to the same design object.
The decisive factor for the court was the nature of the representation. Drawings cannot be as precise as 3D models or photographs. Lines on curved surfaces serve to make the curves visible. The fact that their number and shape vary from view to view is to be expected when transferring a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface. The curvature of the front remains equally recognizable in all views.
The Board also considered the remaining objections to be explainable. It noted that the drain opening was simply not visible from the oblique view and, in any case, was excluded from protection. Regarding the side edges, the Board acknowledged that one view might be ambiguous; however, the other views showed the edges consistently. The Board admitted product photos submitted for the first time during the appeal proceedings for illustrative purposes.
What is the purpose of dashed lines?
For applicants, the first objection is the most instructive. The Board first confirmed that disclaimers must be used consistently in all views in which the relevant feature appears. However, the solid line at the rear edge of the lid did not constitute a violation.
This line merely marks a boundary and does not extend the protection to the lid. The differences in stroke length and line thickness are barely perceptible to the naked eye. They become visible only in the applicant’s enlargements. An overall view of all the images clearly shows that the lid is not protected.
Why, then, did the floor marking fail?
The ruling on which the Chamber relied (General Court judgment of Oct. 23, 2024—Case No. T-25/23, Orgatex v. EUIPO—Longton) illustrates just how fine the line is. In that case, the Board of Appeal had declared a design for a floor marking invalid. The General Court of the European Union upheld that decision.
The four computer-generated views showed contour lines and shading that could not be explained by either perspective or lighting effects. In the court’s view, there is no interpretation in favor of the owner in nullity proceedings. The applicant must ensure that its views are consistent. Photographs of the product actually sold cannot remedy contradictions in the registration.
Both decisions use the same standard. They differ in their conclusions primarily with regard to how much inaccuracy the respective method of representation can account for. In our assessment, the more precise the chosen method of representation, the smaller the margin of error will be.
Conclusion
For design owners, this decision is good news. It shows that a design is not invalidated simply because an opponent finds isolated discrepancies when the design is enlarged. Older, hand-drawn designs, in particular, are given a certain degree of leeway.
However, the reasoning is not convincing in every respect. The Nullity Division still referred to computer-generated technical drawings. The Board, on the other hand, relied primarily on the limited precision of drawings. Furthermore, it acknowledged that a single view could be ambiguous and resolved this ambiguity by referring to the other views. This amounts to an interpretation in favor of the owner, which the Court of Justice of the European Union has expressly rejected in the case of road markings.
It remains unclear where the line is drawn between a minor and an irreconcilable discrepancy. The criterion of visibility to the naked eye is not very precise.
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