[Guest post] Dutch court grants pan-European copyright injunction against Tripp Trapp chair look-a-like

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following contribution by former GuestKat Jan Jacobi and Katfriend Margot Vergeest (both BarentsKrans) on a recent Dutch decision that has acknowledged copyright protection in the famous Tripp Trapp children chair and granted a pan-European injunction against a similar chair manufactured by a German competitor (Cybex) of Norwegian Stokke. Here’s what they write:

Dutch court grants pan-European copyright injunction against Tripp Trapp chair look-a-like

by Jan Jacobi and Margot Vergeest

The iconic Tripp Trapp chair of Norwegian company Stokke is a familiar sight in both family homes and courtrooms throughout Europe. IPKat readers may recall that the chair was the topic of a landmark trade mark law ruling by the CJEU in 2015.

Recently, the chair featured in another interesting and, for some, controversial decision by the Dutch district court of Gelderland of 30 June 2025 in preliminary injunction proceedings.

Background

The case concerned the ‘IRIS’ chair, produced by German defendant Cybex and sold by several Dutch resellers. As depicted below, the IRIS chair bears similarity with the Tripp Trapp chair.

In March 2025, Cybex started selling the IRIS chair in a large number of EU countries, including the Netherlands. Shortly thereafter, Stokke sent demand letters and initiated preliminary injunction (PI) proceedings against the defendants before the district court of Gelderland. In parallel, Cybex initiated proceedings on the merits in Germany and Italy to obtain a declaration of non-infringement.

In the Dutch PI proceedings, Stokke alleged that the IRIS chair infringed copyright in the Tripp Trapp chair and requested the court to grant a pan-European injunction. The defendants refuted this allegation, by inter alia claiming that the Tripp Trapp chair did not meet the threshold for protection anywhere in the EU.

The decision

The court firstly noted that the question whether works of applied art may be protected under copyright is currently the subject of the preliminary referrals in Mio/konektra [IPKat here and here]. However, since no judgement in this case has been rendered by the CJEU yet, the Dutch court concluded that it must apply the law ‘as it currently stands’.

Referring to the decisions of the CJEU in Cofemel, Brompton Bicycle and Vitra/Kwantum [IPKat here, here and here] (being ‘the current law’), the court proceeded to examine whether the Tripp Trapp chair reached the threshold for copyright protection. Referring to the Opinion of AG Szpunar in Mio/konektra [IPKat here], the court held that ‘originality’ is a key element. In line with AG Szpunar, the court concluded that a factual assessment must be made of the degree of originality in a work of applied art. In the end, the originality must showcase free and creative choices reflecting the personality of the author.

According to the district court, the Tripp Trapp chair is sufficiently original. Notably the choices made resulting in the visual ‘L-shape of the chair’ and the illusion that the seat of the chair is ‘floating’ (since the attachment pieces are hidden) showcase creative choices made by the designer of the chair, Peter Opsvik (who passed away in 2024). In this context, the court dismissed the argument made by the defendants that the L-shape and floating visual appearance were already present in other chairs of the prior art before the Tripp Trapp chair was designed. According to the court, the requirement of originality does not mean that a work has to be ‘novel’. Furthermore, the fact that the author is ‘inspired’ by other designs of the prior art, does not (automatically) mean that a work lacks originality. The court however ruled that not all of the claimed elements would meet the copyright threshold. Although the court agrees that several elements are non-technical in nature, such as round curve of the seat and back of the chair, this does not equal creative choices by default.

Kat on an
original (?) Tripp Trapp

On the question of infringement, the court once more referred to the aforementioned Opinion of AG Szpunar, in particular on how similarities between the works should be assessed. The court observed that AG Szpunar proposed to focus on the degree in which elements, that are the expression of choices reflecting the author’s personality, have been reproduced in a recognizable manner in the allegedly infringing work. Because this is different from the Dutch approach, which focuses on the overall impression between the works, the court decided that it would be too premature to already deviate therefrom, also considering the CJEU has not yet given a definite ruling in Mio/konektra (and could decide not to follow AG Szpunar’s recommendation).

Applying the (Dutch) standard of overall impression, the court concluded that the design of the IRIS chair also contains an L-shape and floating appearance of the seats and therefore produces the same overall impression of the Tripp Trapp chair. As an obiter dictum, the court noted that the application of AG Szpunar’s test would lead to the same conclusion anyhow, considering the aforementioned elements are also recognizably adopted in the IRIS chair.

Having established infringement, the court then addressed the request for a pan-European injunction. It firstly recalled that the question whether a work can be protected by copyright is harmonized and should be answered according to the same standards in all EU Member States. However, it also observed that the question whether works of applied may enjoy copyright protection is not answered uniformly by the EU Member States, and therefore some caution is warranted before granting a pan-European injunction. To that end, the defendants alleged that the Tripp Trapp chair would in any case not be granted copyright protection in Germany, due to the “high threshold for works of applied art”. The court dismissed this argument, by considering that there are several previous decisions of German courts which confirmed that the Tripp Trapp chair in fact does enjoy copyright protection.

With regard to the other EU Member States, the court found that Cybex was not actively selling the IRIS chair in 7 Member States and therefore lacked an urgent interest in obtaining a PI for these countries. On the remaining 17 other EU Member States, the court held that Cybex did not bring forward a substantive defence against a finding of infringement in these countries. As a result, the injunction was also granted for these Member States.

Comment

To these Katfriends, the district court of Gelderland gave a new meaning to the concept of ‘Dutch courage’. In a period where copyright protection for works of applied art seems far from harmonized, the court courageously stuck to the current CJEU case law and ruled that the Tripp Trapp chair met the copyright threshold in accordance with the current requirements. Even more courageous is the granting of a pan-European injunction, especially for Germany, considering the German Supreme Court recently [IPKat here] seemed to adopt a higher standard for works of applied art.

An interesting aspect of the decision concerns the adoption of the originality requirement as proposed by AG Szpunar in his Opinion in Mio/konektra. The court clearly stipulated that originality requires a factual assessment and is a different concept from (and does not require) ‘novelty’. Equally interesting is the reluctance of the court to already use AG Szpunar’s ‘recognizability test’ for infringement, which may be indicative of future struggles by the Member States, should this test become the new standard [IPKat here].

Despite the decision being daring, these Katfriends do have the impression that the reputation of the Tripp Trapp chair and the fact that it had already featured in several national decisions played a significant role in this case. It seems unlikely that such an extensive pan-European injunction would have been granted to a different, less renowned work of applied art that barely met the copyright threshold, without awaiting the CJEU decision in Mio/konektra first.

Overall, the Dutch decision illustrates that, despite EU harmonization, differences still exist between Member States, which can quickly cause a country to gain or lose the reputation of being ‘copyright friendly’. Whether Mio and Konektra will put an end to such differences remains to be seen.