Germany: conflict between design and copyright law?

On November 13, 2013, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany Bundesgerichtshof, overruling well-established case law, found that the requirements for protecting works of applied art under copyright law must be the same as the standards for protecting works of fine art. Since works of applied art include industrial designs, this is good news for designers and design right holders. However, given this abrupt turnaround, practitioners may feel disoriented, in particular when it comes to parallel protection under design and copyright law.