Poland: Are the Designs within an Ice-Cream to be Registered as an Industrial Design?

摘要

The question in issue was whether characteristic features of the industrial design should be visible at the time of purchasing a product. The industrial design was in the form of an ice-cream, whose important features consisted of the inner arrangement of filling layers that were visible only when eating the ice-cream. The decision, therefore, touches upon a significant issue: whether the appearance of a product should be available to the informed user and whether the features of a product invisible at the time of purchase should be protected as industrial design. The decision also contained brief commentary on the specific Polish institution of industrial design forms.