Although he is too modest to say so, our Class 99 blogging colleague Henning Hartwig is the man who has made reciprocity in EU design law his own subject. His latest contribution to the jurisprudence on this topic, "Reciprocity in design law: another brick in the wall", has now been published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (2015) 10 (6): 465-467. This short article analyses Case T-39/13 Cezar Przedsiębiorstwo Produkcyjne Dariusz Bogdan Niewiński v OHIM and Poli-Eco Tworzywa Sztuczne, T-39/13, EU:T:2014:852 which involves a Community registered design for 'skirting boards'. Henning concludes:

The question is now whether features of appearance of the disputed product which are solely dictated by technical function should also be disregarded when assessing infringement, ie whether, in the General Court's words, the ‘same criteria have to be applied to both the designs at issue’. While the court's overall rationale seems to support such concept to compare like with like, it appears to be rather unlikely, practically speaking, that an infringement court will factor out, under Article 8(1) CDR, corresponding features found both in the asserted and the accused design. The reason is that, under the multiplicity-of-forms doctrine, alternate designs in the prior art will rather likely demonstrate the absence of any technical or functional imperative. Also, the present case is somewhat different because the earlier design was held to be invisible under normal use, and thus was excluded entirely ...