On 2 July 2013, the Italian Data Protection Authority (the “Authority”) issued a press release informing that it required Facebook (“FB”) to provide clarifications in relation to a bug which was recently brought to light by the mass media, as well as by FB’s admissions and by complaints submitted before the Authority.

A recent judgment of the Court of Milan (No. 5820/2013) on the so-called right to oblivion – or right to be forgotten – on the Internet, ordering a publisher to remove an old article from an on-line newspaper archive, provides a good starting point for an overview of the state of the art in national jurisprudence.

With ruling of 7 June 2013 in joined Cases no. 11626/08 and 11627/08, the Court of Palermo (IP Section) issued a decision on trademark infringement through the use of well-known Google “AdWords” service, as well as on the relevant liability of the Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) providing the service.

On 27 June the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) issued its preliminary ruling in joined cases C-457/11 to C-460/11 requested from the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) in national proceedings between VG Wort – the authorized copyright collecting society representing authors and publishers of literary works in Germany – and the well-known printer and personal computer manufacturers Kyocera, Epson, Xerox, Canon, Fujitsu and Hewlett-Packard (the “Companies”).

On 25 April, the President of the General Court of the European Union (“GC”) issued interim measures for suspension of operation of two decisions by the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) granting third parties access to clinical trials data filed by pharmaceutical companies InterMune and AbbVie (jointly, the “Pharmaceutical Companies”) for their medicinal products “Esbriet” and “Humira” respectively (jointly, the “Medicinal Products”).

Further to general implementation started on 2 January 2013, a second set of rules of Directive 2011/62/UE (the “Directive”) will come into effect for UE Member States on next 2 July. The Directive amended Directive 2001/83/CE on a Community code relating to medicinal products for human use (the “Medicines Code”) “in order to prevent the entry into the legal supply chain of falsified medicinal products”.

Last 19 June, the European Commission (“EC”) imposed a fine of € 93,8 million on Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, further than fines totalling € 52,2 million on several producers of generic medicines.

According to the EU General Court (“EUGC”) ruling issued on 14 May 2013 in joined cases T-321/11 and T-322/11, the mere registration of a domain name should not ground an opposition against the subsequent application for an identical Community trademark, in case the domain name is not “used in the course of trade”.

On 18 April the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) issued its preliminary ruling in case C-12/12 regarding the genuine use of a trademark corresponding to the well-known red label put on the rear pocket of Levi’s trousers.

A much debated issue in Italian IP litigation is whether a “late reaction” against alleged infringements by the right-holder should affect his chances of obtaining an urgent interlocutory relief. Precedents suggest that the right-holder will be affected. However, a recent patent infringement case decision by the Turin IP Court (Feb. 21, 2013, case 4B – F. B. vs K. and al.), confronting that issue, takes a different view.

Nominations were made by clients, and the prizes were awarded based on their comments only. The full list of winners is available at www.internationallawoffice.com/digitaled/CCGINT/2013/edition.htm.

As a consequence of those enforcement activities, all the involved infringers – eight of which are based in Asia, one in Italy and one in the UK – formally undertook to withdraw the counterfeiting products from the market and to cease any further commercialisation of them in the future.

Please see here: http://vimeo.com/55922546