With resolution no. 490/18, after a public consultation, the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) approved several amendments to the Regulation on copyright protection on electronic communication networks (we discussed the previous Regulation here on this blog, and the consolidated text of the new one is available at this link).

By judgement of 12 June (case C-163/16), the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) decided on the request for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank Den Haag (District Court, The Hague, Netherlands) in the course of infringement proceedings between Mr Christian Louboutin and Christian Louboutin SAS (together, “Louboutin”) and Van Haren Schoenen BV company (“Van Haren”), concerning the interpretation of Article 3.1 e) iii) of Directive 2008/95/EC.

With the above decision, published on 13 July 2018 (and available at this link), the Court of Cassation (the Italian Supreme Court) took stock of some substantive and procedural issues concerning the so-called acquiescence.

With a recent order issued at the end of preliminary appeal proceedings (Docket no. 2236/2018), the Venice IP Court granted copyright protection to the layout and interior design of a yacht, in favour of the architect who conceived them.

By judgment of 3 October 2018 (T-313/17), the EU Court ruled on an interesting case concerning the distinctiveness of a three-dimensional trademark depicting the shape of a peculiar bottle.

The “Gabibbo”, a character made popular in Italy by the TV show “Striscia la notizia”, ​​is at the centre of a long-lasting copyright dispute that has made its way up to the Court of Cassation (the Italian Court of last instance) for which there is no end in sight.

By decision no. 4595/18 of last April, the Milan IP Court granted copyright protection to some chairs designed by well-known US designers Charles and Ray Eames, produced and marketed exclusively by Vitra, whose copyrights were infringed by two Italian companies that marketed unauthorised copies.

On 14 March, the EU General Court ruled on case T-651/16 between the Crocs company, of the one part, and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the Gifi Diffusion company, of the other.

By judgment of 7 August in case C-161/17, the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) dealt with a very frequent phenomenon nowadays: the re-posting of contents on webpages other than those on which they were originally published.

On 26 April, the EU General Court (case T 554/14) upheld the appeal in which the well-known football player Lionel Messi challenged the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s (EUIPO) decision rejecting his application for the registration of the “MESSI” trademark shown below.

With a preliminary decision of 26 February 2018, the IP Court of Milan recapped the principles governing unfair competition for the violation of confidential information and the unlawful solicitation of employees (docket no. 53629/18, Judge Mrs Giani).

On 23 January, the European Court of Justice (“CJEU”) issued a preliminary ruling upon request by the Italian Council of State in case C-179/16 concerning the interpretation of Article 101 TFEU, in the well-known proceedings between Hoffman-La Roche and Novartis, of the one part, and the Italian competition authority (“AGCM”), of the other.

Early this year, a three-year long “pillow fight” engaged by Barilla came to an end with a ruling in favour of the Parma food giant (Milan IP Court, decision no. 830/2018 of 25 January 2018).*

The recent decision no. 2173/2018 of the IP Court of Milan analysed the compatibility of the disclosure of court decisions, or news related to them, with the unfair competition law, when carried out on the initiative of the interested party (rather than following an order from the Judge, which in the case at issue had been requested but not granted).

On 16 November 2017, the Italian Data Protection Authority (“Garante”) enjoined Poste Italiane S.p.A., the Italian national postal service, from using a system aimed to organise queues at the counter on the grounds that it was incompatible with data protection laws.

A recent order by the IP Court of Brescia (Docket no. 16565/17, Judges Mr Del Porto, Mr Scaffidi and Mrs Agnese) confirmed that bankrupt companies enjoy protection against unfair competition.

On 30 November, the IP Court of Appeal of Venice issued decision no. 2798/17 in a dispute between Giuseppe and Arrigo Cipriani, respectively grandson and son of Giuseppe Cipriani (founder of the famous Harry’s Bar in Venice), and Hotel Cipriani S.r.l., owner of the famed Venetian hotel. The latter was also founded by Giuseppe Cipriani “senior”, who then sold its shares in the company together with the trademark “Cipriani”.

A bill for the “Protection of individuals reporting crimes or irregularities learnt in the context of a public or private employment relationship”, already rechristened the “whistleblowing law”, was passed by the Italian Parliament on 25 November 2017, and is about to enter into force.

On 6 December 2017, the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) issued the already well-known Coty Germany ruling in case C-230/16, which discussed the legitimacy of some clauses of a selective distribution contract adopted in the context of the sale of luxury cosmetics. Specifically, Coty Germany had acted for trademark infringement against one of its distributors which sold the products on the www.amazon.de website.