Lalique owns an EU and an international design (designating France) registered in 2012 for wine glasses with a specific stem.

In 2015, Habitat France launched a range of stemmed glasses called “Glitz”.

Considering that Habitat’s glass designs imitated its EU registered design, particularly the stem of the glasses for which it also claimed copyright, Lalique brought an action for copyright infringement, design infringement, unfair competition and parasitism.

On September 7, 2017, the Paris Court of First Instance issued a decision dismissing Lalique’s claims and condemned it for abuse of process.

Lalique appealed this decision before the Paris Court of Appeal.

On March 1, 2019, the Court of Appeal held that Habitat had infringed the copyright in the glass stem and had infringed Lalique’s Community design.

The Court also condemned Habitat for acts of unfair competition and parasitism, separate from the acts of infringement.

Habitat then filed an appeal before the French Supreme Court, and in its ruling of June 23, 2021, the Commercial Chamber of the French Supreme Court quashed the appellate judgment and referred the parties to the Paris Court of Appeal.

The French Supreme Court considered that the protection conferred by the registration of a design, whether national or Community, extends to any design that does not produce a different overall visual impression on the informed observer.

To establish acts of infringement, the Court of Appeal must determine whether the overall visual impression produced by the invoked design in question is identical or different from that produced by the allegedly infringing object. The overall visual impression must be assessed objectively and as a whole, and not just on the elements considered to be “non-usual”.

Thus, when a combination of elements is claimed, originality is assessed globally. In this case, the glasses must be assessed as a whole. In the present matter, the Court held that the entire registered design must be assessed, and not just the stems.

On February 15, 2023, the Court of Appeal upheld the first instance judgment, which had dismissed Lalique’s claims.

With respect to the copyright claim, it considered that Lalique had not demonstrated either creative effort or aesthetic choices, nor had it shown the imprint of the author’s personality.

Regarding the infringement of designs, the Court deemed that the overall visual impression generated by the contested glasses differed significantly from that of Lalique’s registered designs, thereby not constituting infringement.

Lastly, the Court also dismissed Lalique’s claims of unfair competition and parasitism, considering that Habitat’s glasses merely replicate functional elements such as the shape of a cup, base, and stem, which are not eligible for appropriation, and thus do not constitute infringement.