Judgment_paragraph 63 · Easy Sanitary Solutions BV and European Union Intellectual Property Office v Group Nivelles (C-361/15 P, C-405/15 P)

63Consequently, the fact that a characteristic of a design is visible is an essential feature of that protection. It is stated in recital 12 of Regulation No 6/2002 that the protection of designs should not be extended to those component parts which are not visible during normal use of a product, nor to those features of such part which are not visible when the part is mounted and that those characteristics should not, for those reasons, be taken into consideration for the purpose of assessing whether other features of the design fulfil the requirements for protection.