Recital 32

(32) The purpose of design protection is to grant exclusive rights to the appearance of a product, but not a monopoly over the product as such. Protecting designs for which there is no practical alternative would lead in fact to a product monopoly. Such protection would come close to an abuse of the design protection regime. If third parties are allowed to produce and distribute spare parts, competition is maintained. If design protection is extended to spare parts, such third parties infringe those rights, competition is eliminated and the holder of the design right is de facto given a product monopoly.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-16 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.