The EU Court of Justice (ECJ), with a decision dated 12 September 2019 in case C-688/17, ruled on the interpretation of Article 9(7) of Directive 2004/48/EC.

With decisions published on 2 November 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) closed, without issuing any sanctions in acceptance of the commitments of the parties, the procedures with which it had contested the inclusion of subliminal advertising in the video clips of the Italian songs “Senza Pensieri” by Rovazzi and “Mambo salentino” by Boomdabash & Alessandra Amoroso (proceedings no. PS11603 – decision no. 28385; PS11604 – decision no. 28386; PS11605 – decision no. 28387).

With judgement no. 153 of last July 24, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) ruled on the matter of the right to be forgotten and upheld a claim against Google LLC, brought by a citizen involved in a criminal proceeding.

With a recent judgement in Case C-485/18, the CJEU ruled on the mandatory indication of the country of origin or place of provenance of foods, in respect of the possibility for a Member State to require additional mandatory information as compared with those provided for in Regulation No 1169/2011.

With decision no. 28358 of 2020, the Italian Antitrust Authority closed the proceedings against Vodafone Italia S.p.A. relating to its “Happy&Win” prize contest held in 2019.

In a judgement handed down on 1 October 2020 (case C-649-18) the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on the prohibition for a Member State to restrict the free movement of information society services from another Member State, in respect of the online sales of medicinal products not subject to medical prescription. 

With order no. 17161 of 2019, the Court of Cassation issued an unprecedented decision regarding the jurisdiction of the IP Courts in cases of so-called related unfair competition.

On 17 September 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) dismissed the appeals brought by the EUIPO and the holder of the MASSI trademark against the General Court decision confirming the validity of MESSI’s trademark registration (shown below) for sports equipment and clothing (see judgement in C-449/18 and C-474/18, available here in french and spanish).

A very recent decision of the EUIPO Cancellation Division (no. 33 843 C) ascertained the invalidity of trademark no. 12575155,  registered by the company Pest Control Office Ltd. (the company acting on behalf of the well-known street artist Banksy), because it had been filed in bad faith pursuant to article 59(1)(b) of the EU trademark Regulation no. 1001/2017.

With the decision no. 10298/2020, the Italian Supreme Court reaffirmed that the use of the surname “Fiorucci” as a trademark by Mr. Elio Fiorucci is unlawful, recalling the principle already stated in the decision no. 10826/2016 issued in the parallel proceeding between Mr. Fiorucci and Edwin Company Ltd (that was basically identical to this one in fact and in law: see our comment here on this blog).

With a press release of 7 September 2020 the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) has announced the commencement of six investigations against three of the leading cloud computing service providers  worldwide.

With the decision of last July 16 (C-311/18), the EU Court of Justice invalidated decision no. 2016/1250 with which, according to art. 45 GDPR, the EU Commission had stated that the Privacy Shield – i.e. the EU-USA agreement ruling on data transfers between the European Union and the USA – provided for adequate protection for the data concerned.

With Sentence no. 8944 of 14 May 2020, the Italian Supreme Court stated that the owner of a registered design, when acting against infringing products, may claim both registered design infringement under the Code of intellectual Property (IP Code) and unfair competition for slavish imitation under Article 2598(1) of the Civil Code (CC).

With a decision dated April 28, the EUIPO’s Second Board of Appeal rejected Amazon Technologies Inc.’s application for the registration of the motion logo represented below, due to its lack of distinctive character under Article 7(1)(b) of Regulation no. 1001/2017 on EU trademarks.

An order issued on April 24, in the dispute between Facebook Ireland Ltd. and the Italian far-right movement CasaPound, saw CasaPound score its second victory.

The Veneto Region has published a call for support for the purchase of innovation services by SMEs. This intervention is aimed at supporting the innovation projects of micro, small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), which operate in Veneto, with a financial envelope of EUR 3.000.000.

With Sentence No. 11959/2020 of 10 April 2020 the Italian Supreme Court found that computer data should be considered, for criminal purposes, a movable good capable of embezzlement pursuant to Article 646 of the Criminal Code.

On 11 June 2020, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) published a historic ruling on copyright protection in case C-833/18 (Brompton Bicycle Ltd v. Chedech / Get2Get), finding that a shape dictated by the technical function of the relevant product can be protected by copyright, if it is also original; that is, if its author still had a margin of free and creative choice that allowed him to reflect his personality in the work.

For the purpose of containing the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Article 6 of Legislative Decree no. 28/2020 provided for the implementation of a national platform for contact tracing, aimed at alerting users who came in contact with virus-positive subjects, who can therefore promptly activate health prevention and treatment protocols (quarantine, medical exams).