The CJEU took a stance against unseen design protection in the bicycle seat case. In it the company manufacturing bicycle seats had a registered design, which was registered with a single representation showing the underside of a saddle (photo), and a different company filed an application for a declaration of invalidity claiming that it was not visible during normal use of the product (the bicycle).

The CJEU confirmed that normal uses of a product include those before and after using the product (e.g. storage and transportation), but do not include maintenance, servicing or repair work.

Businesses should know that it is more difficult to register designs for parts of complex products since these parts are often not visible during/before/after normal use. This is something to think about when presenting an application – maybe the design can be altered to make it visible during normal use?