What makes the Rubik's Cube's shape a legal issue
The Rubik’s Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian professor Ernő Rubik and has since sold hundreds of millions of units worldwide. Spin Master acquired the brand in 2021, inheriting not only an iconic toy but also a legal dispute dating back to 2013.
Verdes Innovations first petitioned the EUIPO to invalidate trademarks registered between 2008 and 2012 by Rubik’s Brand Ltd, Spin Master’s predecessor. The EUIPO agreed that the trademarks had been granted in error, concluding that the cube’s shape and six-colour pattern were integral to the puzzle’s function and not distinctive features that could be protected as a trademark. That decision was upheld in 2023, leading Spin Master to appeal to the General Court.
This week, the judges sided with the EUIPO once again, ruling that: “The essential characteristics of the Rubik’s Cube’s shape are necessary to obtain a technical result and should not have been registered as an EU trademark.”
Why functionality matters in trademark law
Trademarks exist to help consumers identify the commercial origin of goods and services. However, EU law prohibits the registration of shapes that are purely functional or essential to a product’s use. This rule prevents companies from using trademarks to gain permanent monopolies over technical designs that competitors may need to use.
In its judgment, the court highlighted three features of the Rubik’s Cube that are functional, not decorative:
Its Cube Shape: Necessary for the rotating mechanism that allows the puzzle to be played.
The Grid Design: Allows individual “cubelets” to move independently, making the puzzle solvable.
The Six-Colour Faces: Essential for distinguishing sides and determining whether the puzzle is solved.
Because these characteristics enable the puzzle’s basic function, they cannot be protected by trademark law. In other words, while the Rubik’s Cube is iconic, its design is too utilitarian to be exclusively owned in the EU.
An iconic design now open to public
This decision reinforces a long-standing principle in EU law: functional product features cannot be locked down through trademarks. Once patent protection for an invention expires, competitors must be free to use technical designs in their products.
For the toy industry, this ruling opens the door for other puzzle makers to freely manufacture cube-shaped puzzles with similar designs, provided they do not use the Rubik’s name or branding.
This is not the first time attempts to trademark the Rubik’s Cube have failed. In 2016, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that the rotating mechanism of the cube could not be protected by trademark law either. Together, these rulings make it clear that the toy’s functional features belong to the public domain in Europe.
Spin Master’s next move could be an appeal to the ECJ. Until then, the ruling stands as a clear message to businesses: you can trademark a brand, but you cannot trademark functionality.
