32The text of Article 6 of Regulation No 6/2002, concerning the assessment of individual character, lays down, in paragraph 1 thereof, the criterion of the overall impression produced by the designs at issue and states, in paragraph 2, that the degree of freedom of the designer must be taken into consideration for those purposes (see paragraph 20 above). It is apparent from those provisions, and in particular from Article 6(1)(b) of Regulation No 6/2002, that the assessment of the individual character of a Community design is the result, in essence, of a four-stage examination. That examination consists in deciding upon, first, the sector to which the products in which the design is intended to be incorporated or to which it is intended to be applied belong; second, the informed user of those products in accordance with their purpose and, with reference to that informed user, the degree of awareness of the prior art and the level of attention in the comparison, direct if possible, of the designs; third, the designer’s degree of freedom in developing his design; and, fourth, the outcome of the comparison of the designs at issue, taking into account the sector in question, the designer’s degree of freedom and the overall impressions produced on the informed user by the contested design and by any earlier design which has been made available to the public (see, to that effect, judgment of 7 November 2013 in Budziewska v OHIM — Puma (Bounding feline), T‑666/11, EU:T:2013:584, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).
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