Region: Italy

The EU General Court has confirmed the cancellation of the 3D trademark registration for the Rubik's Cube, stating that it simply consists of a shape intended to obtain a technical result.

20 November 2019

Clarifying previous case law, the Supreme Court has stated that when two semi-identical European and Italian patents exist for the same invention and the European patent is rejected by a final decision, Italian courts are free to ignore the European decisions and conclude that the Italian patent remains valid under Italian law.

06 November 2019

Legislative Decree 15/2019 has significantly reformed collective and certification marks in Italy. Owners of collective marks registered under the old law should act quickly or they will lose their rights.

02 October 2019

The Court of Milan has confirmed that an urgent declaration of non-infringement can be granted even if the allegedly infringing product has already been launched on the market.

06 August 2019

It is possible to protect the appearance of products throughout the European Union using registered and unregistered Community designs. In order for these to be valid, the design for which protection is sought must be sufficiently different from designs that are already publicly known. Further, the designs may “differ only in details that can be qualified as ‘immaterial’”. But what does the EUIPO consider to be ‘immaterial details’?

24 July 2019

The Italian Industrial Property Code has amended existing provisions and added new ones, with the aim of reinforcing the protection of trademark owners’ rights and harmonising the IP laws of EU member states.

24 July 2019

In a recent decision, the Court of Milan has offered a broad interpretation of employers’ rights to patents filed by employees where the patents are in the employer’s general field. It opined that the employer should be favoured in the case at hand as the inventive act was carried out under an employment contract, although the employee could still be entitled to a reward.

03 July 2019

A Milan Court judgment has provided clarity on damages in a case where a patent claim was amended. The court has stated that when an infringed patent is amended, damages will be incurred from the date that the infringement started, even if this took place before the amendment.

15 May 2019

Featured in Patents in Europe: Helping business compete in the global economy 2019/2020

Patent owners in Italy may file a lawsuit against an alleged counterfeiter and begin proceedings on the substance of the case. If certain requirements are satisfied, the patent owner may also file a provisional remedy in order to seek a faster decision by a judge. In some cases, the decision reached in the petition must be confirmed by a subsequent main proceeding.

11 April 2019

The Italian Trademark and Patent Office Board of Appeal has reiterated that, in the crowded wine sector, confusion between trademarks is less likely to occur even when certain similarities are present, as most consumers pay close attention to the products that they buy.

10 April 2019