A dispute regarding trademarks with reputation recently gave the Business Court of Milan “A” the opportunity to reiterate some of the principles relating to their protection. By judgment of 13 February 2015, the Court in fact ruled on the use of the trademarks “D&G” and “Sicily” held by Dolce & Gabbana, who challenged the use of the same signs for food (chewing gum) by the company and relevant director sued, demanding protection among others pursuant to art. 20 (1) (c) of the Italian IP Code (“IPC”).

A lengthy Italian judicial saga on geographical indications, which also spawned a European Court of Justice preliminary ruling, has finally come to an end with Court of Cassation ruling no. 28228/2015, published on the 12th of February 2015.

The Milan Business Court “A” recently ruled in a case of image rights infringement initiated by the famous soccer player Gianni Rivera against RCS Mediagroup S.p.A.

The section of the Milan Court dealing with IP matters recently issued an interesting ruling in a trademark infringement and parallel import case.

On 15 January, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) ruled in Case C- 631/13 concerning supplementary protection certificates (“SPCs”). As is known, this is a very relevant matter in the life sciences industry, which we discussed among other things here on this blog.

On 30 January 2015 the Italian Antitrust Authority, in accepting commitments made by the parties, closed infringement proceedings relating to allegedly unfair commercial practices carried out by Gameloft, iTunes, Google and Amazon.

A court order dismissing an interim motion on account of prolonged negotiations between the parties to the proceedings is invalid, according to a recent appeal ruling issued by the Enterprise Matters Section of the Court of Milan.

Last December, the Invalidity Division of the Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) declared the invalidity – with a decision still subject to appeal – of Community design (CD) no. 2222463-001, relating to footwear products, filed in April 2013 by a Portuguese holder (see first image below), upon application by US Crocs Inc., the manufacturer of the famous multi-coloured, holed shoes.

The General Court of the European Union (“GC”) recently rejected the complaint filed by Marques de l’État de Monaco (“MEM”) – a Monegasque company connected with the Principality’s Government – against the decision of the Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market (“OHIM”) not to grant the registration as  a Community trademark of the sign “Monaco” for some of the goods and services indicated in the relevant application (magnetic recording supports, paper products, cardboard, not included in other classes; prints; photographs; transport; travel arrangements; entertainment; sporting activities; temporary housing).

On 15 January, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) ruled in case C-30/ 14 on the contractual protection of the database of the airline Ryanair, containing the data (e.g. times and prices) of its flights.

The 2015 edition of World Trademark Review 1000 – The World’s Leading Trademark Professionals was published yesterday and is available online here.

L’edizione 2015 della guida World Trademark Review 1000 – The World’s Leading Trademark Professionals è stata pubblicata ieri ed è consultabile online qui.

On 20 November 2014, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development issued a circular in which it substantially expands the range of contests that are not subject to Italian Presidential Decree no. 430/01 (the “Decree”).

It is not uncommon in cases relating to trademarks and similar rights for history to be discussed, and the Specialized Section in Enterprise Matters of the Milan Court happened to deal with the recent history of Cuba, along with one of its typical products: rum.

A dispute concerning patent infringement recently brought the Milan Court (Business Chamber “A”) to apply the so-called “problem and solution approach” in assessing the inventive step of the invention at issue. In the judgment that defined the dispute (no. 15057/2014 of 17 December 2014), the Court explained this approach borrowed from the “Guidelines for Examination” applied by the European Patent Office in assessing patent applications (the “EPO Guidelines”).

Quite predictably, the first waves of the Google Spain tsunami did not take long to come ashore in our country.

A few days ago, the Italian Antitrust Authority imposed an administrative fine of € 500,000 on the US company TripAdvisor LLC—owner of the famous tourist reviews portal www.tripadvisor.it—and its Italian subsidiary TripAdvisor Italy Srl, for the “dissemination of deceptive information on the sources of the posted reviews, with regard to the unsuitability of the tools and procedures adopted by the trader to contrast false reviews”.

On 12 December the Court of Milan (Business Chamber “A”) issued a judgment in an action for patent infringement characterised in that, in the course of proceedings, the European patent enforced therein had been revoked and then transformed into an Italian utility model, with the particularity that the same European patent already claimed the priority of an Italian utility model, for which there appeared to be a sort of double patenting of the same invention.

A recently published judgment of the Milan Civil Court (No. 14533/2014 of 5 December 2014) ordered an Italian banking institution to compensate two account holders for the damages caused by a phishing scam.

See our merry holidays video here.