Intellectual Property Rights Discussed In The Brompton Bicycle Case

On 11 June 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU issued a preliminary ruling concerning C-833/18 - Brompton Bicycle v. Chedech/Get2Get, where it provided that copyright protection may also subsist in designs which are shaped to attain a particular technical result provided certain conditions are met.  In other words, the CJEU allowed the overlap of copyright and patent protection in specific cases.

In this case, the CJEU considered the protection of utility articles concerning a design for a folding wheel. Coined 'Brompton bicycle', the facts of this case focus on a foldable bicycle which has the distinctive feature of being able to assume three different positions (a folded position, an unfolded position, and a stand-by position enabling the bicycle to stay balanced on the ground). SI have been marketing this bicycle model since 1987 and the design was protected by a patent.