News

IP WEEKLY UPDATES (HOT TOPICS)

14/02/2023

The European Union funds for trademark and design applications are on the way – Ideas powered for business

 

The European Commission has allocated funds for small and medium enterprises based in the European Union to support activities focused on protecting intellectual property rights.

The fund, called Ideas powered for business https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/it/online-services/sme-fund, will be active from 23 January until 8 December 2023 and offers reimbursement of part of the expenses related to activities concerning trademarks and designs.

Businesses will be able to apply for reimbursement of 75% of filing fees for trademark and design applications before the EUIPO and 50% of filing fees for international applications filed through WIPO. The request for reimbursement must be submitted prior to filing.

Grants are available until exhaustion and it is, therefore, necessary to request the reimbursement as soon as possible by writing to info@lgvavvocati.it


LANDMARK DECISION ON BLOCKING ORDERS BY PUBLIC DNS PROVIDERS

11/11/2022

A panel of three judges of the Court of Milan has dismissed Cloudflare’s appeal against a preliminary injunction requested by the records’ companies Sony, Universal and Warner for blocking users’ access to three notorious pirates BitTorrent sites through Cloudflare’s public DNS service, namely 1.1.1.1.. The users’ access has been already blocked by the local connectivity companies (i.e. Telcos) following the relevant AGCOM’s orders. The Court issued a “dynamic” interim injunction, meaning that DNS blocks shall also include any alias domain to be created by the BitTorrent websites in the future.

Some technical details of the implementation of the injunction order is still subject to the Court of Milan.

Thanks to LGV Avvocati team, founding partners Simona Lavagnini and Luigi Goglia, the senior associate Alessandro Bura and the FPM Team, Luca Vespignani and Marco Signorelli.

#LGVAvvocati #lgv #fpm #copyright

INVENTOR REMUNERATION (ITALY)

22/09/2022

We are happy to share the last contribution from Simona Lavagnini, founding-partner, and Tankred Thiem, partner of LGV, on the magazine Practical Law Global, regarding employer obligations to pay remuneration to employee-inventors beyond their normal salary as a reward and additional compensation (or consideration) for creating patentable inventions.

Take a look!

Inventor Remuneration (Italy)

THE NEW PUBLIC OBJECTIONS REGISTER (REGISTRO PUBBLICO DELLE OPPOSIZIONI)

3/08/2022

The Public Objections Register (“POR” or “Register”) is a tool that aims to strengthen the position of consumers against aggressive commercial practices of telemarketing operators. As of July 27th 2022, the regulation for the new POR came into force, establishing some important protections in the interest of users and obligations towards operators.

 

The POR is a measure against so-called aggressive telemarketing and is a public service made available to users to express their refusal to receive advertising and promotional telephone calls.
Through enrolment in the Register, established by Presidential Decree No. 178 of 2010, the consumer expresses his or her objection to receiving telephone calls for commercial or promotional purposes. The service, which has been active since 2011 and for which the Ministry of Economic Development („MISE“) is responsible, was later updated by Presidential Decree No. 149 of 2019, which extended the scope of the POR to include paper advertising communications in addition to telephone calls. Through a service contract, the MISE entrusted the Ugo Bordoni Foundation with the implementation, management and maintenance of the service.
On January 21st 2022, the Council of Ministers approved the reform that strengthens the Public Objections Register, introducing numerous innovations both from the point of view of companies and contractors.
First, it is worth noting that the scope of the provisions in question has also been extended to other forms of marketing, not only in respect of commercial communications carried out through the activity of call centres. As provided for in Law No. 5/2018, the processing for the purpose of sending advertising or direct sales material or for carrying out market research or commercial communication of all fixed and mobile national numbers through the use of the telephone, whether or not they are included in contractor lists, and of the postal addresses included in the same lists, falls within the scope.
From the consumer’s point of view, then, registration in the Register makes it possible to block not only operator calls but also automated calls, i.e. made by means of automatic dialling software, which are increasingly common among operators and have so far escaped regulation.
In addition, consumers may also decide to include mobile telephone numbers in the Register, to prevent the receipt of promotional calls also on their mobile phones. This treatment was only reserved for fixed telephone numbers.
Another new aspect concerns the revocation of previous consents. Consumers have the possibility to register in the new POR the telephone numbers to which they do not wish to receive promotional communications: this entails the cancellation of all previously given consents.
All numbers that are not in the public telephone directory will also be entered automatically.
From the point of view of companies using so-called direct marketing activities, they are obliged to consult the Register monthly in order to remove new registered numbers from telemarketing initiatives. On the other hand, companies with which one previously had a contract may contact former customers within 30 days of the expiry of the contract. However, this is an exception, since from 15 days after a number has been entered in the Register, promotional calls to that number are considered unlawful.
Should an operator decide to contact a number for promotional purposes, even though it is included by the consumer in the POR, it would be in breach of the right to object and would be liable to administrative sanctions applicable under Article 83 of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). These can be up to EUR 20 million or up to 4% of the total annual worldwide turnover, whichever is higher.
In conclusion, registering with the POR makes it possible to avoid receiving unsolicited commercial communications from any company. On the contrary, if the consumer intends to receive such communications from a specific operator, he/she will have to express his/her consent directly to that specific company. The latter may then include in its promotional campaigns the numbers of that specific user, always subject to the rules on the processing of users‘ personal data, which must be processed in line with the GDPR, the Personal Data Protection Code, the guidelines and the binding provisions of the Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali).

Alfredo Bergolo


THE LIABILITY OF E-COMMERCE PLATFORM OPERATORS – THE ADVOCATE GENERAL’S OPINION ON THE LOUBOUTIN – AMAZON CASE

16/06/2022

On June 2, 2022, Advocate General Szpunar of the Court of Justice of European Union delivered his Opinion regarding the joined Cases C-148/ 21 and C-184/21, concerning the Louboutin/Amazon case, setting out the reasons why the operator of an e-commerce platform should not be held liable for infringements of trademark owners’ rights committed on its platform.

 

Both disputes arose in 2019, when the French fashion designer Christian Louboutin appealed, against the e-commerce giant Amazon, an infringement of his exclusive rights claimed on trademark No. 0874489 registered in the Benelux, and trademark No. 8845539 in the European Union. The subject-matter of his patent rights concerns the “semelle rouge”, i.e. that particular spot of red (Pantone No. 18-1663TP) applied to the sole of luxury shoes, which has been distinguishing and making the collections of the Parisian footwear maison famous worldwide since the early 1990s.

In both proceedings brought against Amazon, Louboutin complained that, among the various advertisements on the platform, they were offered for sale several red-soled shoes, alleging that the operator had acted in violation of its exclusive rights, having advertised and marketed – without his consent – products identical to those for which its trademark is registered.

Both national courts – Luxembourg in case C-148/21, and Belgium in case C-184/21 – made references to the Court of Justice for preliminary ruling, in order to ask to European Judge to clarify the question of the liability of operators of online sales platforms.

In particular, by means of the abovementioned references, the Court was asked whether it was possible to charge direct liability to the operators of e-commerce platforms in relation to the publication of advertisements for the sale of counterfeit goods, even if offered by third parties. Moreover, in those references, there was also a request of interpretating the notion of “use” of the trademark regulated under Article 9(2) of European Regulation No 2017/1001.

In setting out its conclusions on the issue, Szpunar expressly referred to the function and activity performed by Amazon in the e-commerce, which operates as an intermediary on a “hybrid” market by offering consumers both its own and third-party products, as well as shipping and warehousing services. In this regard, the Advocate General has been claimed that the presence of Amazon’s logo as a distributor in third-party sales advertisements does not constitute a connection with the products offered. Accordingly, any infringements committed would also not be attributable to the platform operator provided that no elements would lead the normally informed user confusing the origin of the advertisement and perceiving the product logo as an integral part of the advertising offered by the operator.

Moreover, with reference to the interpretation of Article 9 of the European Regulation, the Advocate General considered that the commercial communication activities carried out by digital intermediary and e-commerce platform operator should not be considered among the hypotheses of ”use” of a trademark, and therefore it should not be liable for any infringements committed on its platform by third parties.

Therefore, the AG expressly concluded that Amazon “cannot be held directly liable for infringements of trademark owners’ rights that occur on its platform as a result of commercial offers by third parties”.

Although not binding for the next decision of the Court, the Advocate General’s conclusions represent a relevant reflection in relation to the criteria for attributing liability to e-commerce platform operators, especially in view of – and in anticipation of – the entry into force of the Digital Service Act, and the Digital Markets Act.

Federica Schiavone