On September 12, 2019, the Supremo Tribunal de Justiça (Supreme Court, Portugal), issued a judgment in the Cofemel - Sociedade de Vestuário, SA v. G-Star Raw CV case, Case-683/17 (in Spanish). The Court of Justice of the European Union Press Release 109/19 summarized the Court’s findings. The dispute concerned an accusation by G-Star that Cofemel was “producing and selling jeans, sweatshirts and t-shirts copying some of its own designs.” The Court discussed its settled case law that “any original subject matter constituting the expression of its author’s own intellectual creation can be classified as a ‘work,’ within the meaning of the directive on copyright.” The Court stated that “a body of acts of secondary EU law establish a specific protection for designs, while providing that that specific protection may apply in combination with the general protection ensured by the directive on copyright. Consequently, a design may, in a particular case, also be classified as a ‘work.’” The Court went on to state that “the protection of designs, on the one hand, and copyright protection, on the other, pursue different objectives and are subject to distinct rules. The purpose of the former is to protect subject matter which, while being new and distinctive, is functional and liable to be mass-produced. Further, the former protection is applicable for a limited time, ensuring a return on the investment necessary for the creation and production of that subject matter without thereby excessively restricting competition. For its part, the protection attached to copyright, the duration of which is significantly greater, is reserved to subject matter that merits being classified as works. In that context, the grant of protection, under copyright, to subject matter that is already protected as a design must not undermine the respective objectives and effectiveness of those two sets of rules, which is why the cumulative grant of such protection can be envisaged only in certain situations.” Finally, the Court held that “the aesthetic effect that may be produced by a design does not constitute a factor that is relevant to the determination, in a particular case, of whether that design can be classified as a ‘work,’ since such an aesthetic effect is the product of an intrinsically subjective sensation of beauty experienced by each individual who may look at the design in question. That classification does, however, require it to be demonstrated that, first, there exists a subject matter which is identifiable with sufficient precision and objectivity, and, second, that subject matter constitutes an intellectual creation reflecting the freedom of choice and personality of its author. Consequently, the circumstance that designs produce, over and above their practical purpose, a specific aesthetic effect, does not, in itself, entail that such designs can be classified as ‘works.’”