Case report MARQUES: Birkenstock v Lidl – One design element in sole protected and reproduction of this element leads to infringement

Birkenstock successfully asserts copyright over (parts of) its sandals in Dutch court. In a judgement dated 23 September 2026, the Gelderland District Court ruled that five pairs of sandals sold by Lidl infringed that copyright.

The ruling is interesting because the court applied the criteria set out in the Mio & Konektra judgement. The court concluded that it is not the sandals as a whole that are protected, but only one specific design element in the sole and one in the so-called ‘upper’. The recognisable reproduction of that single element in the sole is sufficient to constitute copyright infringement in the case of all Lidl sandals.

Furthermore, one Lidl sandal infringes the upper of Birkenstock’s Madrid model by reproducing a single design element from the upper of that particular model.

Case report MARQUES

I have written a report for the MARQUES Class 99 blog containing a more in-depth analysis of the judgement; see here.

See a UK machine translation of the verdict here.