The European Court of Justice (ECJ), by ruling of 14 June 2017 (case C-610/15), returned to interpret the notion of “communication to the public” under Art. 3(1) of the so-called Infosoc Directive (2001/29/EC).

Recent decision no. 1887/2017 of the Brescia IP Court dealt with the issue of the prior disclosure of the patented invention making the patent invalid for lack of novelty.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 14 June issued an important decision on plant-based foods, noting that they cannot be marketed under “butter”, “milk” or “cheese” names because EU law reserves these for products of animal origin (C-422/16).

By ruling of 26 April (case C-527/15), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) stated on a reference for a preliminary ruling proposed by a Dutch court in the context of a dispute between Stichting Brein, a foundation protecting the interests of copyright holders, and a seller of multimedia players allowing the TV streaming of copyright-protected works unlawfully available online, by means of pre-installed add-ons directly linking to third-party websites on which such works are hosted.

On 11 April, Italian Legislative Decree no. 35/2017 implementing the so-called Barnier Directive, i.e. Directive no. 2017/26/EU on the collective management of copyrights and the multi-territorial licensing of rights for the online use of musical works, entered into force.

By decision no. 2217/2017 of 12 May, the Italian Council of State affirmed the possibility of advertising not only over-the-counter medicines (OTCs) but all medicines that can be bought without prescription (NPMs), save the need to obtain the prior approval of the Ministry of Health for the individual advertisements.

L’11 aprile scorso è entrato in vigore il decreto legislativo n. 35/2017 che, non senza qualche ritardo, ha recepito in Italia la c.d. Direttiva Barnier, ossia la Direttiva 2014/26/UE in materia di gestione collettiva dei diritti d’autore e concessione di licenze multi-territoriali per l’uso di opere musicali online.

On 23 March 2017, the Italian Supreme Court issued decision no. 7477/2017 in a case concerning the marketing of copies of the well-known Thun statuettes, reiterating the principles governing the copyright protection of industrial design.

By preliminary order of 7 April 2017, the Court of Rome enjoined the Uber Group – after the Court of Milan’s previous order regarding the Uber Pop app – from continuing to provide and advertise vehicle hire with driver services by means of the Uber Black app in Italy, with the fixation of a € 10,000 penalty for each day of delay in complying with the injunction and with the order to publish the latter on the website www.uber.com.

On 25 May 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (no. 679/16, GDPR) will enter into force. It’s a year away, it’s true, but companies will need time to meet the relevant requirements, hence it’s highly recommended that they start preparing now. Getting ready for the scheduled date will be crucial to avoid sanctions reaching 20 million euros or 4% of annual global turnover.

After hard proceedings – which included a reference to the Italian Constitutional Court – the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio (the Court), with a decision published on 30 March 2017, rejected the appeal proposed by several Internet service providers and consumer associations against the online copyright enforcement Regulation adopted by the Italian Communications Authority (the Authority) in December 2013.

With decision no. 1900/17 of 4 April, the IP Court of Turin granted three-dimensional trademark and copyright protection to the famous “Vespa” scooter by Piaggio.

By decision of 22 December 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) upheld a claim brought by a former employee.

In a decision issued on 26 February 2017, the Garante della privacy (the Italian Data Protection Authority) ruled on the application of an Italian resident seeking the removal from Yahoo!’s search engine of links to a US website reporting news of an old judicial mishap that had occurred to him in that country.

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).