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.

On 18 October 2017, the Milan Chamber of Arbitration decided on a domain names reassignment procedure concerning two ccTLD .it domains, based on the complaint filed by a Belgian company operating in the pharmaceutical e-commerce market. The respondent had registered the two domain names in 2000, but had never used them actively.

By decision no. 5022 published on 5 May 2017, the Milan Court entirely rejected a leading Italian telephone provider’s opposition to an Italian DPA decision, which had considered unlawful and thus had enjoined, a marketing campaign consisting of contacting around five million former customers by phone, asking their consent to successively receive marketing information.

In a recent preliminary order, the IP Section of the Milan Court restated some basic principles in terms of requirements for the granting of urgent probative searches in IP litigations under Italian law (a topic we already discussed in a previous article ).

By first instance decision of 24 July 2017 (no. 8240/17), the IP Court of Milan ruled in a dispute between the two pharmaceutical companies Bayer and DOC Generici, stating that some communications spread by the latter constituted forbidden advertising of class C drugs and hence amounted to unfair competition against Bayer.

In a recent order issued in preliminary (injunction) proceedings, the Milan IP Court summarised its standpoint on jurisdiction and venue for infringements of IP rights committed online.

The Milan IP Court, on 12 July 2017, decided on a proceeding commenced by two Chinese shop owners against the Florentine fashion house Ferragamo S.p.A. (Docket no. 7940/2017).

Next month, some important amendments introduced by Regulation EU no. 2015/2424 – which we have already discussed here on this blog – to EU trademark law, governed by Regulation EC no. 207/2009, will enter into force.

On 18 July, the General Court of the European Union (“GC”), in case T-57/16, annulled a decision by which EUIPO’s third Board of Appeal had rejected an action of nullity proposed by the French maison Chanel SAS against the Community design represented below (on the left), registered for ornaments under class 32 of the Locarno classification.

With order of 25 July 2017, the Milan IP Court confirmed an ex parte preliminary injunction it previously ordered upon request of the famous Italian conceptual artist Emilio Isgrò against Sony Music Entertainment Italy S.p.A. (hereafter “Sony”), the Italian distributor of “Is this the life we really want?”, the last album released by Roger Waters, Pink Floyd’s former bassist. With this decision, Sony was enjoined from continuing to commercialise and distribute the album graphics (i.e. the casing, cover, booklet and labels) since it infringes copyright on Isgrò’s works of art and, in particular, on the “Cancellatura” artwork dated 1964.

By decision of 18 July 2017 (docket no. 8066/17), the IP Court of Milan sentenced a number of companies to compensate the damages caused to Flou S.p.A. through the marketing of copies of the “Nathalie” bed designed by Vico Magistretti.

By order of 9 May 2017, the Milan IP Court decided on a preliminary proceeding concerning a dispute that arose just before the last Salone Internazionale del Mobile – the famous Italian international furniture fair – between two of the biggest Italian furniture companies: Molteni & C. S.p.A. and Cassina S.p.A.

In recent judgment no. 7204/17, the IP Court of Milan compared the well-known OKI trademark of the pharmaceutical company Dompè (the plaintiff) with the KOKITUSS, KOKIDEC and KOKIMUCIL trademarks of Pool Pharma (the defendant), concluding that the latter infringe the first.