Recent Ruling Settles the Question of Copyright Protection for Unregistered Designs
The Israeli Supreme Court has just released its long awaited ruling in CA 1248/15 Fisher Price Inc. v. Dvoron Import and Export Ltd., resolving the question of copyright protection in industrial designs. In the factual frameworks of the subject case, the world famous toy company Fisher Price (“the Appellant”), sued a local Israeli retailer (“the Appellee”) that allegedly copied one of its baby swinging chairs. Put in a nutshell, the Court held that the Copyright Law does not provide protection to unregistered industrial designs. Nevertheless, under certain circumstances, a part of a design that qualifies for copyright protection when separated from the subject design will not be denied such protection when copied as part of the whole design.
