Art. 6 CDR : Individual character
(a) in the case of an unregistered Community design, before the date on which the design for which protection is claimed has first been made available to the public;
(b) in the case of a registered Community design, before the date of filing the application for registration or, if a priority is claimed, the date of priority.
2. In assessing individual character, the degree of freedom of the designer in developing the design shall be taken into consideration.
(see also Art. 5 CDD)
2 preliminary rulings
Judgment of 18 Dec 2025, C-323/24 (Deity Shoes) 
Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs and, in particular, Articles 4 to 6 thereof, read in the light of Article 14 of that regulation,must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to enjoy the protection conferred on a Community design, the owner or designer of that design does not have to demonstrate, in addition to the existence of the conditions of novelty and individual character, that that design is the result of a minimum degree of creation.
Article 6 of Regulation No 6/2002must be interpreted as meaning that, first, the fact that designs have predetermined visual characteristics provided by a model offered in a supplier’s catalogue to the designer of those designs, and that the modifications made to those designs by their designer are only ad hoc and relate to components offered by that supplier, is not in itself capable of preventing the recognition of their individual character within the meaning of that Article 6. Secondly, fashion trends are not likely to limit the degree of freedom of the designer in such a way that minor differences between one or more prior designs and the design at issue may suffice for that design to produce a different overall impression on the informed user than that produced by those prior designs and thus have an individual character. The features of a design which result from fashion trends are not likely to be of lesser importance in the overall impression they produce on such a user.
Judgment of 19 Jun 2014, C-345/13 (Karen Millen Fashions )
Article 6 of Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs is to be interpreted as meaning that, in order for a design to be considered to have individual character, the overall impression which that design produces on the informed user must be different from that produced on such a user not by a combination of features taken in isolation and drawn from a number of earlier designs, but by one or more earlier designs, taken individually.
Article 85(2) of Regulation No 6/2002 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order for a Community design court to treat an unregistered Community design as valid, the right holder of that design is not required to prove that it has individual character within the meaning of Article 6 of that regulation, but need only indicate what constitutes the individual character of that design, that is to say, indicates what, in his view, are the element or elements of the design concerned which give it its individual character.
3 appealsOrder of 30 Jan 2018, C-538/17 (Murphy v EUIPO)
Judgment of 21 Sep 2017, C-361/15 (Easy Sanitary Solutions v Group Nivelles)
Judgment of 18 Oct 2012, C-101/11 (Herbert Neuman)
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