There is a very interesting judgement of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw of 11 October 2007, case file VI SA/Wa 1215/07. It concerns a dispute regarding an industrial design of a handle for cutlery which is registered for Gerlach S.A. The Court had to decide about the novelty of a design based on electronic evidences. The court ruled that such evidences are not sufficient. A CD print-out from a database can not be treated as a legal document with an unquestionable date since there are graphical tools which make a modification of such data an easily possibility. In this case such a proof can not be deemed a proper evidence if it is not properly certified. Also a statement issued by a private company is not enough unless it is supported by invoices or official publications of catalogues of exhibitions where such product was shown. A compact disk has to be certified by an expert as regards to a date it was burned.
See also my post entitled “Polish case law on industrial designs“.