The Porsche 911 is undoubtedly an iconic car. Instant product
recognition is, of course, something that most companies strive
for. But fame and familiarity can create their own problems when it
comes to issues of intellectual property.
Porsche recently suffered a setback when the EU General Court
upheld a decision of the European Union Intellectual Property
Office to cancel certain design registrations relating to the
appearance of the Porsche 911. The applications for cancellation
had been brought by a company called Autec, and the basis of the
attack was that the designs lacked novelty. In particular, Autec
claimed that the designs in issue weren’t novel because they
were very similar to earlier versions of the 911. Porsche sought to
counter this claim by arguing that the differences between the
designs in issue and the earlier versions of the 911 were
significant – the differences related to relatively minor
things like fog lamps and the positioning of mirrors. The
