"We have gone to court in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain to protect the 'three dimensional trademark' of the overall shape of the Brompton so that if someone else invents a different kind of folding bike, they can't make it look too like ours; this has been appealed all the way up to the European Court of Justice and may one day be ruled on there." - Will Butler-Adams
Since this thread was active in February, the EU courts did rule: sorry, Brompton, your bike is a functional industrial design (with an expired patent), not copyrightable/trademarkable artwork.
Brompton has now lost two back-to-back "3D trademark" cases against Dahon and Chedech in the EU courts.