European Union – Intellectual property rights. In the course of proceedings concerned an infringement of Community designs, the Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of art 8(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002. The Court held, among other things, that art 8(1) should be interpreted as meaning that in order to determine whether the features of appearance of a product were exclusively dictated by its technical function, it should be established that the technical function was the only factor which determined those features, the existence of alternative designs not being decisive in that regard.