Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:212
Date: 2000-04-13
Language of the case: French
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Free movement of goods;Measures having equivalent effect;Intellectual, industrial and commercial property;Quantitative restrictions;Designs
Procedure: Action for failure to fulfil obligations - successful
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions — Measures having equivalent 
effect — National legislation providing for a procedure for detention by the customs 
authorities, at the time of intra-Community transit, of goods which are presumed to be 
counterfeit, are lawfully manufactured in a Member State and are lawfully marketed in 
another Member State — justification — Protection of industrial and commercial 
property — None — Transit not forming part of the specific subject-matter of the design 
right 
(EC Treaty, Arts 30 and 36 (now, after amendment, Arts 28 EC and 30 EC)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-23/99 
A Member State which implements, pur­
suant to its intellectual property legislation 
applicable to designs, procedures for the 
detention by the customs authorities of 
goods lawfully manufactured in another 
Member State of the European Community 
which are intended, following their transit 
through national territory, to be placed on 
the market in another Member State where 
they may be lawfully marketed fails to fulfil 
its obligations under Article 30 of the 
Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 28 
EC). 
The national legislation at issue, which 
authorises the national customs authorities, 
on an application from the proprietor of 
the right in designs of spare parts for motor 
vehicles, to detain spare parts presumed to 
be counterfeit goods for a period of 10 days 
during which the applicant may refer the 
matter to the competent national courts, 
has the effect of restricting the free move­
ment of goods. 
Intra-Community transit consists in the 
transportation of goods from one Member 
State to another across the territory of one 
or more Member States and involves no use 
of the appearance of the protected design, 
so that it does not form part of the specific 
subject-matter of the right of industrial and 
commercial property in designs. 
Since the manufacture and marketing of the 
product are lawful in the Member States 
where those operations take place and 
transit does not form part of the specific 
subject-matter of the design right in the 
Member State where transit takes place, it 
must be concluded that the impediment to 
the free movement of goods caused by the 
product's detention under customs control 
in the latter Member State in order to 
prevent its transit is not justified on 
grounds of the protection of industrial 
and commercial property. 
(see paras 22, 43, 45, 49 
and operative part) 
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