Another copyright infringement of the famous Tripp Trapp chair

On 30 June 2025, the District Court Gelderland, the Netherlands issued a new ruling about the well-known adjustable Tripp Trapp children’s chair. Similar to previous judgments, the Court considers the Tripp Trapp chair to be copyright protected based on two important elements and issues a pan-European injunction. Get seated for a summary of another case about this famous chair.

Parties and starting position

The preliminary injunction (“PI”) proceedings were filed by  Stokke AS and Peter Opsvik AS (“Stokke”), owning all IP rights in the Tripp Trapp chair against the Dutch companies Babypark B.V. (“Babypark”), Baby-Dump B.V. (“Baby-Dump”), as well as three German entities collectively referred to as Cybex (“Cybex”). Cybex is a developer of, amongst others, children’s chairs, which Babypark and Baby-Dump, as distributors, offer in physical stores and via online channels.

On 12 March 2025, Cybex launched the ‘IRIS Chair’ in several European Union (“EU”) Member States. Babypark and Baby-Dump added the IRIS Chair to its product range but did not sell a single product. Cybex did not stop offering the IRIS Chair for sale after receiving a warning letter from Stokke. Parties then commenced a course of lawsuits: Stokke started the ‘war’ by filing two PI proceedings in The Hague, the Netherlands, which were both withdrawn shortly after filing. In between, Cybex filed declaration of non-infringement proceedings in Germany and Italy. Stokke lastly filed for a third PI, this time at the District Court Gelderland, the Netherlands (based on the place of establishment of Babypark as an anchor defendant), requesting an injunction for Babypark and Baby-Dump in the Netherlands as well as a pan-EU injunction against Cybex.

Procedural defences

The Court first deals with the multiple procedural defences raised by Cybex. The first one concerns the international jurisdiction of the Court over Cybex. Stokke primarily sued Cybex based on Article 8(1) Brussels I-bis[1], which states that a person domiciled outside of the Netherlands may also be sued in the court of the place where any other defendant is domiciled, provided that the claims are so closely connected that it is expedient to hear and determine them together to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings. Even though this rule must be applied with caution, the Court decides that it has international jurisdiction over Cybex. The claims concern the same product and are thus closely connected.

Additionally, the Court rejects Cybex’ arguments that Stokke allegedly abused the law and its powers by commencing and withdrawing proceedings twice before starting this third PI. There must be exceptional circumstances for a case to be inadmissible on these grounds and the circumstances of the present case do not outweigh the heavy consequence of claims being inadmissible. Furthermore, the Court considers that Stokke does have an urgent interest due to a continuous risk of infringement after Cybex refused to sign a cease-and-desist declaration. Even though a couple of weeks have passed after Stokke's first email of 16 March 2025 in which it summoned Cybex to cease infringement immediately, Cybex’ refusal to sign a cease-and-desist declaration outweighs the time passed in the urgency balance. It is common in Dutch cases to put weight on the ongoing risk of infringement in this assessment.

Copyright infringement

The Court then moves to copyright with a reference to the large number of pending legal questions relating to copyright protection of utility items. Recently, Advocate-General Szpunar of the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) rendered an opinion on the Mio and Konektra cases regarding this topic.[2] The Court furthermore refers to the recent debate on harmonisation of copyright within the EU in the CJEU’s Kwantum v. Vitra ruling, which case was handled by Taylor Wessing on behalf of Kwantum.[3]

Against that background, the Court has considered if the Tripp Trapp chair is a copyright protected work of art.. Out of a list of eight elements of the Tripp Trapp chair provided by Stokke, the Court rules that two of these elements fulfil the test of being copyright protected: the L-shape of the uprights and beams of the chair and the diagonal uprights which contain all parts of the chair. The other six elements are considered not creative, not original, or too trivial. Based on the two elements that are protected, the Tripp Trapp chair is copyright protected according to the Court.

The Court keeps it short on copyright ownership. Cybex late-filed (only at the hearing) its defence that Stokke did not provide proof that Peter Opsvik designed the Tripp Trapp chair. Despite the late filing, the Court in any way ruled that there is no reason to doubt that Peter Opsvik is the designer of the Tripp Trapp chair and that he transferred his rights to Stokke.

The last copyright-related hurdle is infringement. The Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that the test for copyright infringement is whether the overall impressions of the two products are similar.[4] In this test, the copyright-protected elements are decisive; unprotected elements can only be considered if the combination of them in the infringed product is copyright protected. Even though Advocate-General Szpunar advised the CJEU to use a different test (whether creative elements are incorporated in the allegedly infringing product recognisably), the Court still applies the overall impressions test. Nevertheless, the Court concludes that one way or the other, the IRIS Chair is an infringement of Stokke’s copyrights in the Tripp Trapp chair. Because the Tripp Trapp chair is a famous, revolutionary chair that has been awarded multiple prizes and has received much attention from museums, designers and the legal world, the copyright protection of the chair (especially its two creative, original elements) is broad. The IRIS chair contains the two foremost and copyright-protected elements of the Tripp Trapp chair (the L-shape and diagonal uprights), and Cybex did not make design choices to defer from those elements sufficiently. All elements that are different, according to Cybex, do not outweigh the similarities. Cybex’ last-resort argument that it did not derive from the Tripp Trapp design but created it on its own cannot succeed either, given the popularity and well-known status of the Tripp Trapp chair.

Conclusion

The Court renders a mild ruling for Babypark and Baby-Dump by confirming infringement in the Netherlands but dismissing all ancillary claims and ordering the parties to each bear their own legal costs and expenses. Cybex is also held to infringe Stokke’s copyrights and is imposed with an injunction that covers 19 out of 27 EU countries. The Court refers to the harmonisation of copyright in the EU.[5] Cybex is not active in the other eight states. This case again makes clear that obtaining a pan-EU injunction based on copyrights is possible in the Netherlands against non-Dutch companies as well, using a Dutch anchor defendant. The injunction does not cover the holding in stock of the IRIS Chairs to create a standstill at this moment. Stokke’s request for a copy of all protective letters that Cybex submitted in EU countries is dismissed, as the Court considers not to have jurisdiction to rule on this request. Contrary to the other defendants, Cybex is held to bear Stokke’s legal costs and expenses. That will not sit well with them.