On 22 April, the Turin IP Court issued an interesting judgment (no. 2256/16) on the long-term coexistence of two identical trademarks used for identical products. The Judges looked specifically at the effects of such co-existence for the purposes of the so-called “validation” of the later trademark and the infringement of the earlier one.

With sentence no. 3512 of 15 February 2019, the IP Court of Rome ruled on a case between Reti Televisive Italiane SpA (RTI) and Mrs. V.P., on the one hand, and Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland Limited (together, Facebook), on the other.

With an order published on 5 March 2019 (docket number 1588/2015), the Supreme Court of Cassation, overturning the decision of Rome Court of Appeal, ruled on the validity of patents, recalling that the limits of protection of the invention must be construed taking into consideration the claims, the description and the drawings attached to the patent.

With an order issued on 26 February 2019, in the proceeding with docket number 16185/2018, the Court of Bari ruled on the infringement of the well-known Supreme trademark by the Supreme Gold trademark.

On 14 January the IP Court of Milan issued an interesting precautionary order concerning the protection of the works of the street art artist known under the pseudonym Banksy, whose identity is unknown.

By an order dated 29 November 2018, the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) imposed a 600,000 EUR fine on Wind Tre S.p.A. for the infringement of several provisions of the (Italian) Personal Data Protection Code[1] (applicable to the activities here considered, which occurred before the entry into force of the GDPR) in the context of a telemarketing activity.

In response to the question submitted by the National Council of the Employment Consultants, the Italian Data Protection Authority (“Garante”) recently clarified the role of the employment consultant regarding the qualifications of “data controller” and “data processor” in light of EU Regulation 2016/679 (“Regulation”).

With decision no. 14 788 C of 11 January, the Cancellation Division of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) ruled on the dispute started by Supermac’s Holding Ltd. (herein, “Supermac’s”) against McDonald’s International Property Company Ltd. (herein, “McDonald’s”) for the revocation of the European trademark BIG MAC (word mark n. 62638, registered on 22/12/1998 for classes 29, 30 and 42 of the Nice Classification).

With a recent decision (you can find the abstract here), the Italian Supervisory Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) found that the data processing by Facebook, concerning information submitted by its users by means of the apps available on the web platform and through certain software products developed during Italy’s 2018 elections, was unlawful.

With the judgement published on 10 January (docket no. 23732/2012), the Court of Rome ascertained the liability of Vimeo LLC for the infringement of the related rights – under articles 78ter and 79 of the Italian Copyright Law – on TV programmes owned by Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (RTI), in relation to the failure to remove several videos taken those programmes which were illegally uploaded to Vimeo by its users.

With the judgement of 19 December, the European Court of Justice (case C-572/17) ruled on the interpretation of Article 4 paragraph 1 of Directive 2001/29/EC which, as known, provides authors the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any form of distribution to the public of the original or copies of their works.

By order dated 20 September 2018 (docket no. 45209/2017), ruling on the appeal of the first instance preliminary decision, the Court of Milan ascertained – within the limits of interim proceedings – the infringement by equivalence of Eli Lilly’s patent EP 1313508, concerning an anti-cancer drug named Alimta, which contains pemetrexed disodium.

By order of 18 December, in proceedings with docket no. 44211/2018, the IP Court of Milan provided a clear summary of the principles governing the protection of trademarks vis-à-vis retailers alien to the selective distribution network of the trademark owners.

The European Court of Justice, in a recent judgement dating 13 November 2018 (case C 310/17), gave a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of the concept of a ‘work’ under Directive 2001/29/EC on copyright and the possibility of including the taste of a food product in its definition.

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.