By decision no. 2016/17 of 2 March, the Milan IP Court declared the validity and infringement of a patent and a Community unregistered design held by Freddy S.p.A. on its pants named “WR.UP”. Specifically, the pants were characterised by the fact that they “combine the advantages arising from the use of a knit fabric, i.e. jersey, which ensures comfort and fit, with the function to shape the hips and buttocks, thanks to particular technical solutions.”

On 17 January, the Milan IP Court issued an interesting decision (no. 490/17) concerning patent limitations in invalidity proceedings.

With quite a resounding decision of 24 November 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) excluded the lawfulness of the processing of personal data proposed by Mevaluate, an organisation wanting to launch a web platform capable of calculating the reputation of certain individuals in an allegedly impartial and reliable way.

On 2 December 2016, the Italian Supreme Court issued a decision (no. 24658/16) as part of a large pharmaceutical litigation between Bayer Pharma AG and Industriale Chimica s.r.l. The Court confirmed the infringement of a Bayer process patent under the doctrine of equivalence, but excluded the patentability of an intermediate covered by that same patent.

On 30 December 2016, the Milan IP Court (Business Court A) issued a preliminary injunction against the marketing of footwear constituting the slavish imitation of shoes with a bow made by Ports 1961 (Ports). Below are the original Ports shoes (to the left) and the imitations (to the right).

As noted by many commentators at the time, following the 6 October 2015 ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Case C-362/14 Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner, the main tool used within the European Union to (legitimately) transfer personal data to the United States, the so-called Safe Harbor regime, had practically ceased to exist.

On 10 November, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on the possibility of registering the shape of the famous Rubik’s Cube as a trademark (C-30/15 P).

With Judgment No. 4710/2016 of 20 September 2016, the IP Court of Catania, Italy, granted protection to the well-known KAMUT® trademark against unauthorised use by local entrepreneurs.

By its Decision no. 303 of 13 July 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority (“Garante della privacy”) provided some cues on the interpretation of the current rules on the monitoring of the use of IT services by employees in the workplace, amended in late 2015.

The Milan Court, with ruling no. 10374 of 28 September 2016, overturned an earlier decision with which the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) denied protection to the appellant, who had a public position and enforced her right to be forgotten. The right to be forgotten has been discussed here and here on this blog.

On 15 September 2016, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued a decision on a reference for a preliminary ruling by the Munich Regional Court I (case C-484/14) concerning the interpretation of Article 12(1) of the e-commerce Directive 2000/31/CE.

By order no. 226 of 18 May 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) issued a decision on the processing of personal data carried out through the localisation of company smartphones given to employees.

By the decision of 8 September 2016 (case C-160/15), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on a reference for a preliminary ruling by the Dutch Supreme Court, with which the latter requested it to assess whether posting hyperlinks giving access to protected works published online without the authorisation of the copyright holder infringed the latter’s right to communicate the work to the public under Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC, the interpretation of which we already discussed here on this blog, although with regard to different problems.

The Milan IP Court, with ruling no. 8986/2016 published on 18 July 2016, stated that the commercialisation of some watches made by the Italian competitor Blu Trade S.r.l. and its distributor, Coin S.r.l., infringed the Community design no. 919204-002, registered in 2008 by the Danish company Noon Copenhagen AS, and that such activity also constituted unfair competition for slavish imitation.

On 4 July 2016, with ruling no. 13570, the Italian Supreme Court commented on the possibility of extending the co-ownership of an Italian trademark to an identical foreign trademark.

By decision of 8 September 2016 in T-472/13, the European General Court (“GC”) dismissed Lundbeck’s appeal against the European Commission (“EC”)’s decision to fine it – and a number of generic companies – for delaying market entry of generic versions of Lundbeck’s anti-depressant citalopram product.

In a decision published on 12 July (no. 8628/2016), the IP Court of Milan granted copyright protection to the Moon Boots by Tecnica Group S.p.A., the famous après-ski boots in vogue for decades, ascertaining that they were infringed by the Anouk après-ski boots by Anniel depicted below to the right.

Here is a copy of the article published on World IP Review on the impact of Brexit on IP – and particularly the UPC – from an Italian perspective. Written by Elena Martini, also reporting comments by Judge Tavassi, president of the Milan IP Court.

By preliminary order of 10 May 2016, the IP court of Venice upheld the infringement of the well-known word trademark “Morellato”, owned by the petitioner Morellato S.p.A., an Italian historical jewellery and watch company, by another Italian company with the same business name, trademark and domain name – all reproducing its founders’ surname – but active, inter alia, in the field of perfumes and cosmetics manufacturing.

On 25 May, the Italian Supreme Court issued decision no. 10826/16 in a dispute about which much has been said in recent years, both because of the reputation of the parties involved, and the extensive litigation to which it gave rise: the dispute between the fashion designer Elio Fiorucci and the companies that bought the “Fiorucci” brands in 1990 (Edwin Co. Ltd. and Edwin International Gmbh), with which the designer collaborated until 2002. We talked about this also here on this blog.