The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a judgment on 4 December 2025 on copyright protection for works of applied art in the joined cases Mio & Konektra. Works of applied art are utilitarian objects such as, for example, furniture, items of clothing and (folding) bicycles. The Mio & Konektra judgment concerned alleged counterfeit versions of designer furniture, specifically a table and a modular cabinet system. Both the German and Swedish courts subsequently submitted preliminary questions to the CJEU on the interpretation of the concept of work in copyright law. The central question in this judgment was when a work of applied art is a copyright work.
Copyright and design law
The first question the CJEU answered was what is the relationship between protection under copyright and protection under design law. In 2019, the CJEU ruled in the Cofomel judgment that protection under copyright and design right is possible jointly, but can only be considered in certain situations.
In this ruling, the CJEU emphasised that both doctrines are two separate forms of protection and the conditions for protection must be assessed separately. Thus, there is no rule-exception relationship between design protection and copyright protection. If a work meets both tests, it can be protected under copyright and design law.
Stricter requirements?
Importantly, the CJEU also confirmed in this judgment that works of applied art should be assessed in the same way as other works. Thus, works of applied art are not subject to stricter requirements to obtain copyright protection.
Qualification of a work
A work is copyrighted if it is original in the sense that it is the creator's own intellectual creation. It is necessary that the object reflects the personality of its creator by expressing that creator's free and creative choices. Thereby, in general, choices determined only by a technical function or other imperative do not qualify as free and creative choices.
According to the CJEU, these are only choices of the creator that are visible in the object, meaning that the court can only take into account the creation process and the creator's intention insofar as they are visible in the object itself.
The only requirement is that the object reflects the personality of the creator. Thus, the extent to which the object can be seen artistically or aesthetically is not a prerequisite for copyright protection. Similarly, the presentation of an object in art exhibitions or museums and its recognition in professional circles is not necessary or decisive in determining whether a work is copyrighted.
Originality must be assessed on the basis of the situation at the time of creation, where the use of existing elements does not necessarily exclude copyright protection. The use of existing elements can also be original if the creator expressed his creative choices through the arrangement of these elements. Even if the creator draws on his own previous works and is a "variant" of his own work, he can enjoy copyright protection if the elements adopted are present and reflect the personality of the creator.
Infringement
There is infringement of a copyrighted work if recognisable creative elements of the protected work have been copied in the infringing object. This is also the case if unauthorised use is made of a small part of the work, as long as that part expresses the author's own intellectual creation.
This specifically revolves around the creative elements copied in a recognisable manner. The fact that the same overall visual impression is created by two conflicting objects, a standard from design law, and the degree of originality of the work in question are not decisive here. In doing so, the CJEU seems to abandon the "overall impression criterion" often used in the Netherlands, which assesses whether the allegedly infringing object creates the same overall impression as the copyrighted work.
More information or questions?
In conclusion, the CJEU confirms with this judgment that works of applied art have the same protection under copyright as other works, that in case of infringement, the adoption of protected elements should be considered, and that the overall impression criterion is in all likelihood not the correct criterion. However, the CJEU does not fill in when something "reflects the personality of the author". This will be interpreted by Dutch case law in the coming years.
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