By the judgment of October 24, 2024, in case C-227/23, the CJEU ruled that EU law precludes Members States from applying in their national law the material reciprocity test provided for in Article 2(7) of the Berne Convention in relation to a work of applied art for which the country of origin is a third country and the author is a national of a third country. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands requested the preliminary ruling in a case involving Kwantum, a company that runs a chain of home furnishings stores in the Netherlands, and Vitra, a company that manufactures designer furniture created by the now-deceased American citizens Charles and Ray Eames. According to Vitra, Kwantum is selling a chair designed by the aforementioned American citizens in violation of its copyright.

The Supreme Court, held that the dispute relates, among other things, to the applicability and scope of the second sentence of Article 2 (7) of Berne Convention, which, for works protected in their countries of origin only as designs and models, provides that in another country belonging to the union established under this convention, only special protection, which is granted in that country to designs and models, can be demanded, thus establishing a test of material reciprocity. However, the court pointed out that EU law does not contain any provisions regarding the material reciprocity test.

This raised the question of whether Member States may independently decide whether or not to apply this test in relation to a work for which the country of origin is a third country and whose author is a citizen of a third country.

Summary:

The CJEUnoted that the scope of application of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society is determined not by the criterion of the country of origin of the work or the nationality of its author, but by reference to the internal market, which corresponds to the territorial scope of application of the treaties. Consequently, the situation in which a company seeks copyright protection for an object of applied art sold in a member state falls within the scope of EU law, provided that the object can be classified as “work” within the meaning of Directive 2001/29/EC.

Members States should therefore not apply the material reciprocity test set out in Article 2(7), second sentence, of the Berne Convention to a work of applied art where the country of origin is a third country and the author is a national of a third country. According to the previously mentioned criteria, third-country applied art pieces may in fact be subject to different treatment in various member states based on the bilateral treaty law requirements that apply between the Member State and the third country (para. 68 of the judgment).

The full text of the judgment>>