Birkenstocks are comfortable and omnipresent in summer. The shoes made in Germany are available in many colors and shapes. Sometimes they look chic and sometimes look shabby. But can these sandals be viewed as art?
The Federal Supreme Court of Germany had to decide on Thursday, and it decided that they were only comfortable shoes.
Birkenstock, which has its headquarters in Linz on the Rhine in West Germany and says that his tradition of shoe production applies to 1774, submitted a lawsuit against three competitors who sold sandals that were very similar to its own.
The shoe manufacturer claimed that his sandals are “copyrighted works of applied art” that cannot simply be imitated. According to German law, works of art enjoy a stronger and long -lasting protection of intellectual property than ordinary consumer goods products.
The company asked for an injunction to keep its competitors from making imitals and order them to remind and destroy the people already on the market. The defendant companies were not identified in the declaration of court.
Functionality and craft trumps art
Before Germany’s highest court for civil proceedings was weighed up this Thursday, the case had been negotiated in two pre -court courts that did not agree on this question.
While a regional court in Cologne recognized the shoe models as works of applied art and granted the orders, the higher regional court of Cologne later raised the instructions in the appeal, the German news agency dpa reported.
The Court of Appeal said that with its characteristic buckle it could not build artistic achievements in the widely beaten sandals.
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Online buyers include “Dupes”, products that look like large branded items, but are much cheaper. We hear from consumers who say that they shouldn’t be ashamed to want something more affordable, and designers and small companies who say that the conclusions violate their final result.
On Thursday, the Federal Supreme Court set up in Cologne’s higher regional court and rejected the case. In his decision it wrote that a product cannot be protected by copyright if “technical requirements, rules or other restrictions determine the design”.
So when it comes to birch sticks sandals, functionality and craft – at least in the eyes of the law.
“The design level must not be too low for the copyright protection of an work of applied art – as for all other work -” wrote the court. “The purely technical creation using formal design elements is not entitled to protect the copyright. Rather, a design level must be achieved for copyright protection that reveals individuality.”
