On 2 December a long-awaited ruling was published, in which the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (“TAR”) decided – dismissing it – on the action brought by Novartis and Roche against the sanction of a 180 million euro fine imposed upon them by the Italian antitrust authority (“AGCM”) for anti-competitive practices in relation to the respective drugs named “Lucentis” and “Avastin”.

On 5 November, the Court of Milan (Business Court “A”) issued a judgment on a dispute concerning the famous “Polo Player” trademark of the Ralph Lauren group, representing a polo player hitting a ball. In fact, the plaintiff The Polo/Lauren Company (“Ralph Lauren”), proprietor of a series of figurative National and Community trademarks concerning the “Polo Player”, requested the court to declare the invalidity of two trademarks registered in Italy by the defendant R&D of Hong Kong, allegedly including a sign almost undistinguishable from the Polo Player.

By decision of 20 November in joined cases C-581/13 P and C-582/13 P, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) ruled on the cross-class protection of well-known trademarks in relation to Intra-press’ sign “Ballon d’Or”, i.e. the name of the famous football award that is registered as a Community Trademark (“CTM”).

The use of third party trademarks as “ad-words” in order to gain advantageous referencing in Internet searches does not necessarily constitute trademark infringement, the Enterprises Section of the Milan Court ruled on appeal against a summary judgment, in a decision that is filled with references to the EU Court of Justice case-law.

By judgment of 14 November in proceedings with docket no. 76679/08, the Milan Business Court “A” ruled on the amount of damages suffered by the plaintiff due to the commercialisation of products infringing one of its registered designs.

In 2011 a local administration, following an anonymous tip-off, searched the Web and found that one of its employees was offering sexual services on specialised public websites.

On 2 October, the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) adopted its new policy on the publication of clinical data for medicinal products for human use.

With decision no. 427 of 25 September, the Italian Data Protection Authority specified some important principles on the processing of personal data, clarifying some useful aspects for companies that deal with direct marketing activities.

Even the mere distributor of a patented product is entitled to file a lawsuit for infringement of the relevant patent in a competent court: so it was ruled by the Italian Court of Cassation, thus taking a stance in a very controversial matter, in judgment no. 15350/2014.

The adoption of an Opinion on the Internet of Things and personal data protection in the EU by the Article 29 Working Party (WP) last September had a certain resonance.

The Court of Milan Business Chamber “A” recently issued a decision in a case in which Chanel was sued in relation to its “Latin Lover” advertising campaign of 2010 (decision no. 11375/2014 of 29 September 2014).

After (almost) exactly three years since a well-known Milan IP Court ruling settled a litigation between Yahoo! Italia and R.T.I.—the TV arm of the Mediaset group—in favour of the latter, the same Court, ruling on a new copyright infringement litigation between the same parties, issued a reverse decision, awarding the victory to Yahoo!

The IP Court of Milan recently issued a ruling of some interest in the matter of distinctive packaging, unfair competition and related damages claims (ruling no. 11010/14 of 17/09/2014).

By judgment of 18 September (C-205/13), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has returned to the subject.

By judgment No. 9855/14 published on 1 August, the Business Chamber “A” of the Court of Milan has decided the lawsuit filed by Sanofi against Teva for the infringement of supplementary protection certificate no. UB99P653 (“SPC ‘653”), which was owned by Sanofi for its CoAproval medicine (irbesartan + hydrochlorothiazide) and allegedly infringed by the relevant generic drug from Teva.

In its judgment of 11 September in case C-117/13, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared that Member States may authorise libraries to digitise, even without permission from right holders, books they hold in their collection in order to make them available at electronic reading points.

On 4 September, the French antitrust authority issued its decision in the proceedings initiated against Nespresso, for allegedly exclusionary practices implemented by Nespresso against competitors producing capsules compatible with its coffee machines.

The copyright protection of industrial design works in Italy seems to be at risk again. This is because of a rule introduced in the so-called “Sblocca Italia” (“Unblock Italy”) decree due to be published shortly, which would change for the umpteenth time art. 239 of Legislative Decree no. 30/2005 (Intellectual Property Code, “IPC”), already schizophrenically amended countless times in the past: see our post about it here, here, here and here.

An IP Judge of the Milan District Court partially granted an application for preliminary seizure and injunction filed by the well-known confectionery company Ferrero against one of its competitors, which claimed, among other things, an infringement of shape trademarks (Order of 08.11.2014, Docket No. 19325/2014, Judge S. Giani).

By order of 1 August 2014, the Labour Court of Milan rejected the motion of an employee who was fired by his company on grounds related to the use of Facebook and the Internet in the workplace (Labour Court of Milan, Docket no. 6847/2014, Judge Colosimo).