With order no. 12956 of 14 May 2025, the Italian Supreme Court ruled in a complex case concerning copyright and the digital exploitation of musical works, rejecting the appeal filed by Sony Music Entertainment Italy S.r.l. against Lucio Battisti's heirs and their companies Edizioni Musicali Acqua Azzurra S.r.l. and Aquilone S.r.l.

A 24 June 2025 PI order issued by the IP division of the Court of Venice confirms a well-established line of Italian case law regarding the ownership regime applicable to commissioned software (which we addressed already here).

The court highlighted that a rehearing is an extraordinary legal remedy that, under Article 81(1) UPCA, may exceptionally be granted only if a final decision is tainted by a criminal act or a fundamental procedural defect. it is not available for mere errors or disagreements over the interpretation of the law or the assessment of the parties’ arguments or evidence.

By judgment No. 1599/2025 of 5 May 2025, the Venice IP Court of Appeal affirmed that it is possible to obtain a declaratory judgment of infringement and the related injunctive and compensatory relief even with respect to a patent whose main claim has been declared invalid.

On February 18, 2025, Judgment No. 4131 issued by the First Civil Division of the Court of Cassation was published. The Court returned to the topic of co-owned patents, and particularly the applicability of the rules on co-ownership in such cases. The decision in question raised a legal issue of such significance as to justify a public hearing: in the case of patent co-ownership, may the invention be freely exploited by each co-owner, or, conversely, is the consent of the other always required?

According to the CdS, the combination of the elements – position of the billboard near the Football Village, slogan used, football shirt, flags of the nations participating in the event – constituted communicative “framing” capable of persuading the average customer to believe, erroneously, that Zalando was the official sponsor of UEFA Euro 2020.

The Court dismissed the appeal filed by Jaguar Land Rover, confirming the invalidity of four Italian 3d trademarks registered on the famous off-road vehicle “Defender” due to lack of distinctive character.

Can a Simple Geometric Figure Possess Distinctive Character?
This is the issue addressed in the judgment of 13 November 2024 (T-426/23) of the General Court of the European Union, which confirmed the invalidity of the trademark registered by Chiquita Brands LLC for the blue and yellow sticker attached to fresh fruit, including bananas. This judgment, the result of a long legal process, provides significant insights into the concept of distinctiveness in trademarks.

A recent interim order issued by the Court of Florence (order dated 7 May 2025) addressed the potential conflict between banking confidentiality and the rights of third parties.
In this case, an Italian company mistakenly transferred funds to an unknown party due to an incorrect IBAN, while intending to move the money between two of its own bank accounts. Notably, the company had indicated itself as the “payee” in the transfer order.

By interim order of 24 April 2025 – perhaps the first, and certainly among the earliest Italian precedents on the matter – the Genoa IP Court issued a particularly noteworthy decision concerning the application of the so-called breeder’s exemption to plant-related patents.

At the beginning of 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its much-anticipated judgment in Audi (Case C-334/22), which addressed the delicate issue of trademark use on spare car parts produced by independent third parties. The decision quickly drew widespread attention across the legal community, as it was seen to mark a new milestone in the evolving jurisprudence surrounding the intersection of intellectual property rights and the automotive aftermarket. It was, arguably, the most influential trademark ruling since Ford (2015), and it triggered extensive commentary (IPKat here).

Most commentators, including me, viewed the judgment as a clear reinforcement of the legal position of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and many assumed it would pave the way for Audi's success in the underlying national litigation. Few could have predicted that the Polish court, which had submitted the preliminary reference, would eventually issue a ruling that ran directly counter to those expectations.

In the field of software—and more broadly in the realm of intellectual works—non-specialists often assume that the original copyright holder is the individual or company responsible for its creation. In reality, this is not always the case. In many situations, the creator and the holder of the economic rights are different parties from the outset.

This issue was recently addressed by the IP Court of Brescia (order of 14 April 2025), which was called to resolve a dispute between two former partner companies, both claiming ownership of  software developed by one of them, to manage the electronics of industrial machines manufactured by the other.

The search and seizure of evidence pursuant to the Italian IP Code, within the framework of know-how litigations, requires prima facie evidence of ownership and infringement of trade secrets in the strict sense. This was confirmed in a recent case brought by an Italian company before the Milan IP Court through a summary judgment application.

On 17 December 2024, the Opposition Division of the EUIPO issued a decision in the PDO protection landscape, upholding opposition no. B 3207890 against the registration of trademark application no. 018918364 “CHAMPRICE”

A recent ruling (No. 1481/2025 of 26 March 2025) by the Turin IP Court on employee poaching and misappropriation of trade secrets offers a valuable overview of the “state of the art” of Italian case law on these matters.

The Court Appeal clarified that withdrawal of the opt-out is not allowed when national proceedings were commenced during the transitional period. Instead, proceedings commenced before the transitional period cannot affect the withdrawal.

The Court of Milan stated that so-called ‘simple’ (non-creative) photographs available and accessible on the internet, except in cases of bad faith, can be used freely and without authorisation by the people who found them, if they lack the indications prescribed by Article 90 of the Italian Copyright Law (no. 633/1941, ICL).

The Court clarified that, pursuant to Directive 2001/29/EC, Member States cannot apply the criterion of material reciprocity (Art. 2(7) of the Berne Convention) to works of applied art from third countries.

The Court declared the infringement, enjoined the defendant from any further marketing of infringing machinery, setting a penalty of €12,000 for any further infringement, and ordered an interim award of damages in the amount of €15,000.

The decision elaborates on the need to dismiss or stay the case due to the pending of parallel proceedings between affiliated companies and provides a summary of the criteria to be followed in interpreting claims and assessing novelty and inventive steps.