It is worth returning to the decision issued on 16 December 2024 against Loro Piana, all the more so since, a year later, on 10 November 2025, the EUIPO upheld a Community design filing for one of the brand’s sneakers. While this recent decision confirms that a form may be protected on the basis of its aesthetic identity alone, the 2024 case illustrates a different dimension of legal reasoning: trademark law protects form only where it functions as an indication of commercial origin. What qualifies as a protectable design does not automatically become a protectable trademark, even when the visual language is unmistakable to an informed luxury consumer.
In the earlier case, Loro Piana sought protection for a device consisting of two straps positioned on the upper of women’s footwear, each holding a metallic pendant, one shaped like a lock, the other perforated. This was neither a logo nor a word sign, nor an accessory affixed externally to the shoe. Rather, the sign was physically integrated into the very structure of the product. This feature determined the entire legal analysis. Where a sign forms part of the product’s appearance, trademark law applies a considerably stricter standard. Since the landmark Plastikflaschenform ruling (CJEU, 25 October 2007, C-238/06 P), the Court of Justice has required that such signs must “depart significantly from the norms of the sector” to be registrable. The test does not revolve around artistic originality, but around the capacity of the form to indicate origin without interpretive effort.
Here, the EUIPO observed that the upper part of a shoe, particularly in women’s footwear, is a traditional field of aesthetic experimentation. It is commonplace to find tassels, metal ornaments, pendants and other decorative attachments. Within such a stylistic landscape, the elements that Loro Piana sought to protect are capable of being perceived by the consumer not as a badge of origin but as one more decorative variation among many. Even if loyal customers could recognise the feature as a visual signature, the legal characterisation remains objective: the assessment must be made with regard to the average consumer in Class 25, not to a population familiar with luxury codes. Stylistic identification, however recognisable in practice, does not equate to commercial identification in law. Trademark protection does not extend to a silent aesthetic vocabulary unless it can be shown to fulfil the constitutional function of indicating origin.
The brand argued that the element had been used systematically, that it had been the subject of online counterfeiting, and that earlier marks contained similar features. None of these assertions could influence the outcome. In the absence of an explicit claim under Article 7(3) EUTMR for acquired distinctiveness, evidence of use is legally irrelevant. Counterfeiting is equally inconclusive: decorative elements are copied as frequently as distinctive signs, and imitation is not evidence of consumer perception. As for earlier registrations invoked by the brand, they were rejected because they contained verbal components such as “Loro Piana” or “LP”, which alter the way in which the decorative element is perceived. Moreover, the EUIPO recalled that it is not bound by its own previous decisions: consistency cannot prevail over statutory legality, as affirmed by the Court of Justice in Glass pattern (CJEU, 28 June 2004, C-445/02).
Seen from this perspective, the decision of 16 December 2024 reflects a principled stance. Trademark law is not designed to monopolise aesthetic expression, even when such expression becomes emblematic of a brand. It protects only forms that consumers immediately understand as indicators of origin. What pleases the eye does not, by its nature alone, become a legal sign. For luxury houses, this means that the implicit visual language they cultivate must be translated into evidence. The protection of aesthetic identity depends not merely on creativity, but on the ability to demonstrate consumer recognition through perception studies, explicit claims of acquired distinctiveness, or combinations of form with verbal or figurative identifiers.
More than ever, safeguarding non-verbal identity requires a refined interplay between creation, consumer perception and legal qualification. It is in this intersection, between style and proof, that visual branding in the luxury sector increasingly becomes a matter of legal strategy.
