Italy – Trade Secrets: new regulation for a better protection

27 Giugno 2018

  • Italia
  • Proprietà industriale e intellettuale

Il codice della proprietà intellettuale, all’art. 20, prevede che il titolare del marchio d’impresa ha il diritto di vietare ai terzi, salvo proprio consenso, l’uso di un segno:

  1. identico al marchio per prodotti o servizi identici a quelli per cui esso è stato registrato;
  2. identico o simile al marchio registrato, per prodotti o servizi identici o affini, se a causa dell’identità o somiglianza fra i segni e dell’identità o affinità fra i prodotti o servizi, possa determinarsi un rischio di confusione per il pubblico, che può consistere anche in un rischio di associazione fra i due segni;
  3. identico o simile al marchio registrato per prodotti o servizi anche non affini, se il marchio registrato goda nello stato di rinomanza e se l’uso del segno senza giusto motivo consente di trarre indebitamente vantaggio dal carattere distintivo o dalla rinomanza del marchio o reca pregiudizio agli stessi.

Analoghe disposizioni si rinvengono nell’art. 9, n. 2 nel Regolamento (UE) 2017/1001 sul Marchio dell’Unione Europea anche se in questo caso si parla di marchi che godono di notorietà.

Le prime due ipotesi riguardano la maggior parte dei marchi e sono tese dirimere il conflitto tra due segni che siano identici per prodotti o servizi identici (sub a), cosiddetta doppia identità, oppure tra due marchi che siano identici o simili per prodotti o servizi identici o affini, se a causa dell’identità o somiglianza fra i segni e dell’identità o affinità fra i prodotti o servizi, possa determinarsi un rischio di confusione per il pubblico (sub b).

Per “affinità” si intende una similarità merceologica tra i prodotti o i servizi (ad esempio tra calze e filati) oppure un collegamento tra i bisogni che i prodotti o i servizi intendono soddisfare (come spesso accade nel settore della moda, in cui è abituale ad esempio che lo stesso produttore di calzature offra in vendita anche cinture). Non a caso, benché la rilevanza sia amministrativa e non volta delineare l’affinità, al momento del deposito della domanda di registrazione di un marchio, il richiedente deve indicare i prodotti e/o dei servizi per i quali vuole ottenere la protezione tra i beni ed i servizi presenti nella Classificazione internazionale di Nizza di cui al relativo accordo del 1957 (giunto oggi all’undicesima edizione del 01.01.2019). Anzi, a seguito del leading case “IP Translator” (Sentenza della Corte di Giustizia UE del 19 giugno 2012, C-307/10), il richiedente è tenuto ad individuare, all’interno di ciascuna classe, i singoli beni o servizi per i quali invoca la protezione, in modo da delimitare correttamente la tutela del marchio.

Al di là dei suddetti marchi ordinari, vi sono appunto alcuni segni che, col tempo, hanno acquisito una certa notorietà per i quali, come previsto dall’ipotesi sub c), la protezione si estende anche ai prodotti e/o ai servizi che non sono affini (e tanto meno identici) a quelli per il quale il marchio è registrato.

La ratio sottesa a questa alla suddetta norma è quella di contrastare il fenomeno contraffattivo dovuto all’indebita appropriazione di pregi. Nel settore della moda, ad esempio, si assiste di sovente a condotte contraffattive volte a sfruttare in modo parassitario l’avviamento commerciale dei brands più blasonati al fine di indurre il consumatore all’acquisto del prodotto alla luce delle maggiori qualità – in senso lato – del prodotto.

La protezione accordata dalla norma in parola mira quindi a tutelare anche il cosiddetto selling power del marchio, inteso come elevata capacità di vendita dovuta alla funzione evocativa e suggestiva del marchio, anche in ragione degli ingenti investimenti pubblicitari effettuati dal titolare del marchio stesso, ed in grado di travalicare i limiti dell’affinità del settore merceologico a cui appartiene il marchio.

Si parla infatti di tutela “ultra-merceologica” – che prescinde dal rischio di confusione di cui all’ipotesi sub lettera b) – invocabile allorché sussistano alcuni presupposti.

In primo luogo, il titolare ha l’onere di provare che il proprio segno gode di rinomanza, sia a livello territoriale che con riferimento al pubblico interessato.

Ma cosa si intende per rinomanza e quali sono i requisiti? Nel silenzio delle norme, la giurisprudenza comunitaria, con la nota sentenza General Motors (Corte di Giustizia CE, 14 settembre 1999, C-375/97) l’ha definita come “l’attitudine del segno a comunicare un messaggio al quale sia possibile agganciarsi anche in difetto di una confusione sull’origine” sancendo che la tutela possa essere accordata se il marchio è “conosciuto da una parte significativa del pubblico interessato ai prodotti o servizi da esso contraddistinti”.

Secondo la Corte, tra i parametri che il giudice nazionale deve tenere in considerazione per determinare il grado di notorietà di un marchio, rientrano la quota di mercato, l’intensità, l’ambito geografico e la durata del suo uso, nonché gli investimenti realizzati dall’impresa per promuoverlo.

Naturalmente, maggiore è la notorietà del marchio, maggiore sarà l’estensione della tutela sino a ricomprendere ambiti merceologici sempre meno affini.

Il pubblico di riferimento, continua la Corte “è quello interessato a tale marchio d’impresa, vale a dire, secondo il prodotto o il servizio posto in commercio, il grande pubblico ovvero un pubblico più specializzato, ad esempio un determinato ambiente professionale”.

La rinomanza, inoltre, deve possedere anche una certa estensione territoriale e, in tal senso, la suddetta pronuncia ha precisato che il requisito è soddisfatto nel caso in cui la notorietà sia in una parte sostanziale dello Stato membro, tenendo conto sia delle dimensioni della zona geografica interessata che della quantità di persone ivi presenti.

Per quanto concerne il marchio EU, la Corte di Giustizia, con la sentenza Pago International (Corte di Giustizia CE, 6 ottobre 2009,C‑301/07) ha statuito che il marchio deve essere conosciuto “da una parte significativa del pubblico interessato ai prodotti o servizi contraddistinti dal marchio, in una parte sostanziale del territorio della Comunità” e che, tenuto conto delle circostanze del caso concreto, “l’intero territorio di uno Stato membro” (nella fattispecie si trattava dell’Austria) “può essere considerato parte sostanziale del territorio della Comunità”. Tale interpretazione, a ben vedere, è conseguenza del fatto che la protezione di un marchio UE si estende a tutto il territorio dell’Unione Europea.

Affinché il marchio rinomato possa essere tutelato non è necessaria una somiglianza tra i segni tale da ingenerare un rischio di confusione. Tuttavia, ci deve essere un nesso (concetto ripreso più volte dalla giurisprudenza europea e da quella nazionale) tra i due marchi nel senso che il marchio posteriore deve evocare quello anteriore nella mente del consumatore medio.

Per poter beneficiare della tutela ultra-merceologica, le suddette norme richiedono che il titolare del marchio debba essere in grado di fornire adeguata prova del fatto che l’appropriazione del segno, da parte di terzi, costituisca indebito vantaggio per questi o, in alternativa, che arrechi un pregiudizio al titolare stesso. Naturalmente il presunto contraffattore potrà provare il giusto motivo che, come tale, può costituire un’esimente idonea a vincere la protezione accordata.

Peraltro, il titolare del marchio non è costretto a provare una lesione effettiva, essendo sufficiente, per giurisprudenza consolidata, “un rischio futuro non ipotetico di indebito vantaggio o di pregiudizio”, benché serio e concreto.

Il pregiudizio potrebbe riguardare il carattere distintivo del marchio anteriore e si verifica, “quando risulta indebolita l’idoneità di tale marchio ad identificare come provenienti dal suo titolare i prodotti o i servizi per i quali è stato registrato e viene utilizzato, per il fatto che l’uso del marchio posteriore fa disperdere l’identità del marchio anteriore e dell’impresa corrispondente nella mente del pubblico.”

Parimenti, il pregiudizio potrebbe anche concernere la rinomanza e si verifica quando l’uso per i prodotti o i servizi offerti dal terzo possono essere percepiti dal pubblico in modo tale che il potere del marchio che gode di rinomanza ne risulti compromesso. Ciò avviene sia nel caso in cui si abbia un uso osceno o degradante del marchio anteriore, che nel caso in cui il contesto nel quale viene inserito il marchio posteriore risulti incompatibile con l’immagine che il marchio rinomato ha costruito nel tempo, magari attraverso costose campagne marketing.

L’indebito vantaggio ricorre, infine, quando il terzo, aggancia parassitariamente il proprio marchio alla notorietà o alla distintività del marchio rinomato, traendone benefici di varia natura.

Uno degli esempi più recenti di tutela ultra-merceologica ha visto coinvolte Barilla e un’azienda tessile per aver quest’ultima commercializzato cuscini che riproducevano le forme di alcuni dei biscotti più famosi, contrassegnandoli con i medesimi marchi dapprima e poi, a seguito di diffida, con i nomi degli stessi biscotti con l’aggiunta del suffisso “-oso” (“Abbraccioso”, “Pandistelloso”, ecc.). Stante la rinomanza acquisita dai marchi della nota azienda alimentare, i relativi marchi sono stati riconosciuti meritevoli della suddetta tutela estesa a servizi e prodotti non affini. Il Tribunale di Milano, infatti, con sentenza del 25 gennaio 2018, ha statuito, tra l’altro, che la condotta perpetrata dall’azienda tessile, attribuendo ai propri prodotti i pregi di quelli della Barilla, abbia configurato un’ipotesi di concorrenza sleale parassitaria per appropriazione di pregi, ai sensi dell’art. 2598 c.c. La notorietà̀ dei marchi denominativi e figurativi registrati dalla Barilla, in sostanza, ha consentito di tutelare anche prodotti non affini, stante l’indebito vantaggio derivante dalla rinomanza del segno altrui.

L’autore di questo articolo è Giacomo Gori.

Last 7 June, legislative decree no.63 of 11 May 2018 implementing EU Directive no.2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on “on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure”, was published in the Official Journal of the Republic of Italy, pursuant to article 15 of Delegated Law no. 163 of 25 October 2017.

The purpose of this act was twofold: on the one hand, it assisted in matching the already existing Italian legislation – in particular, articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property – with the new EU legislation; whilst, on the other hand, it implemented new and more effective provisions of law on the protection of trade secrets.

The European Union introduced Directive no. 943/2016 in order to harmonize and ensure consistent protection of know-how and trade secrets on European level: in fact, irrespective of article 39 of the TRIPs Agreement, Italy was the only EU member having a domestic definition and a specific protection of trade secrets and no EU law has been passed governing their unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure. This factor weakened the ability of several countries to protect one of the most prominent intangible assets for industry 4.0 and next-generation innovative businesses.

Amid this European scenario, Italy maintained a privileged position vis-à-vis most of the other Member States, since provisions for specific protection of business know-how and confidential information had already been laid down under articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property. This is why Italian lawmakers intervened in articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property to merely replace the former language “business information and expertise” with the notion of “trade secrets”, while basically leaving the protections envisaged in article 98 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property unchanged to its earlier version, which was already in line with the EU rules.

Apart from this, the legislative decree supplemented the applicable rules and improved the standards of protection of trade secrets, pursuant to EU Directive no. 2016/943, to enable judicial decisions in protection of trade secrets to be weighed against, inter alia, the significance of such information, its importance for the claimant, and the precautionary measures implemented by the owner thereof.

In the first instance, paragraph 1-bis of article 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property has been introduced to take negligent behaviours into consideration on the matters of infringement of trade secrets, so that the acquisition, use, or disclosure of trade secrets may be held unlawful even when, at the time of the challenged circumstances, the individual was, or should have been, aware, as the case may be, that the trade secrets had been directly or indirectly obtained by the party that unlawfully used or disclosed them.

Quite the reverse, article 9, paragraph I, of the Directive has been fully implemented in article 121-ter on the preservation of confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of legal proceedings, irrespective of these being for precautionary measures or on the merits of the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of such trade secrets. According to such new provision of law, any (ordinary, civil or criminal, administrative or accounting) court of law will be entitled to prevent the counterparties, their representatives and advisors, legal counsels, clerical staff, witnesses, any court-appointed or delegated experts, and any other persons having access to the decisions, briefs and documents included in the court file, from using or disclosing the trade secrets discussed in the proceedings that the court may classify as confidential. In addition, it is expressly provided that such a prohibition shall maintain full force and effect after the conclusion of the proceedings in which scope it was imposed, while vice versa its effectiveness will be forfeited (i) in the event that the lack of the requirements set out in article 98 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property in order to have a valid trade secret is assessed by ruling, or (ii) where the trade secrets fall in the public domain or become easily accessible to industry players and experts.

Furthermore, in the same article specific measures were laid down for the preservation of confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of legal proceedings: hence, subject to compliance with the principles of fair trial, the judge will be entitled to adopt the most appropriate measures to preserve the confidentiality of the trade secrets discussed in the trial. Besides, the article explicitly sets forth two of the measures available to the judge: i.e., restricting access to hearings, briefs and documents included in the court file; and ordering the clerks to conceal the specific parts containing the trade secrets from the documents filed in the proceeding. However, because policymakers did not deem it appropriate to enable the judicial authorities to impose such prohibitions and measures by operation of law, they preferred leaving any request in this respect to the parties’ initiative, owed to the apparent high technical expertise required to appraise the confidential nature of such trade secrets.

With a view to ensuring a more accurate and effective preservation of trade secrets, criteria have been laid down (in article 124, paragraph 6-bis, of the Italian Code of Industrial Property), which the Judge will be bound to uphold when establishing the remedies and civil sanctions – and assessing whether these are suitable – in the proceedings on the matters of unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets under article 98. For this purpose, the Court is required to take into consideration the material circumstances of the case at issue, among which:

  • the value and other specific features of the trade secrets;
  • the measures implemented by the legal holder to protect the trade secrets;
  • the actions carried out by the infringer to acquire, use or disclose the trade secrets;
  • the impact of the unlawful use or disclosure of the trade secrets;
  • the parties’ legitimate interest, and how this may be affected by the endorsement or rejection of the judge’s measures;
  • the legitimate interest of third parties;
  • the interests of the general public; and
  • the need to ensure protection of the fundamental rights.

Not only will the Judge be bound to take these circumstances into consideration in the course of the proceedings on the merits, but also upon issuance of the precautionary measures sought by the trade secrets holder, and upon appraisal of their suitability, based on the explicit warning contained in new paragraph 5-ter of article 132 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property. Consequently, the Judge will issue a preliminary injunction or another interim measure only if the requesting company proved having adopted all the necessary measures and internal protocols to keep a given trade secret confidential.

According to new paragraph 5-bis of article 132 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property all proceedings aimed at seeking protective measures for trade secrets, as an alternative to the application of the precautionary measures, the judge may authorise the defendant to continue to use the trade secrets, subject to providing an appropriate security for compensation of any damages suffered by their legitimate holder, in any event, without prejudice to the prohibition to disclose the trade secrets authorised for use.

The precautionary measures adopted in protection of the trade secrets may be forfeited either for failure to commence the proceedings on the merits within the mandatory deadline (set out in article 132, paragraph 2, of the Italian Code of Industrial Property), or as a result of the claimant’s actions or omissions. Where the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of the trade secrets are subsequently found to be groundless, the claimant will be sentenced to repay the damages caused by the adopted measures.

As a further novelty, Legislative Decree no. 63/2018 introduced a compensation, payable as an alternative to the application of the measures under article 124 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property, which may be granted upon the interested party’s application, provided that all of the following requirements laid down by new paragraph 6-ter of article 124 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property are met: at the time of the use or disclosure, the claimant was not, nor should have been, aware that the trade secrets had been obtained by the third party unlawfully using or disclosing them; the execution of these measures would be unduly burdensome for the claimant; the compensation is commensurate to the damages suffered by the party seeking the application of relieving measures and, in any event, it does not exceed the amount that would have been paid on account of royalties for the use of the trade secrets throughout the challenged period of time.

A statute of limitations has been established in 5 (five) years for rights and actions connected with such misconducts.

As a final provision, in line with the availability of progressive measures and enhanced accuracy and effectiveness of trade secrets protections, which are the EU Directive basic principles, a list of the items is provided which the judge ought to appraise to order the publication of his ruling, and to weigh the suitability of the claimed measures: the value of the trade secrets; the actions carried out by the infringer to acquire, use or disclose the trade secrets; the consequences of the use or disclosure of the trade secrets; the risk of the infringer carrying on with the unlawful use or disclosure of the trade secrets.

Furthermore, to make the above appraisal the Judge shall also consider whether, based on the available information, a natural person may be identified as the actual infringer and, in the affirmative, whether the publication of such information is justified in the light of any potential damages that may be caused to the infringer’s private life and reputation.

In conclusion, articles 388 (wilful failure to enforce a court decision) and 623 of the Italian Criminal Code (disclosure of trade or science secrets) have been amended to improve the criminal reliefs granted under the Italian legal system, so as to include breach of trade secrets, and the measures connected therewith, among the misconducts sanctioned under the above provisions.

All that considered, a new approach in adopting internal rules and compliance’s procedures is required to companies and trade secrets owners in order to protect their confidential information and to safeguard their judicial protection and new language shall be adopted in drafting non-disclosure agreements: as a matter of fact NDAs were in the past very often merely copied and/or downloaded from the web without any juridical care and the due attention.

On May 18, 2018, was published in the Federal Official Gazette a reform to the Industrial Property Law (“IPL”), which will become effective on August 10, 2018. Since some of the amendments are business relevant, we prepared the following note:

Statement of Use. Titleholders of trademarks are obliged to file a statement of use, within the three months following the third year in which the registration was granted. If the titleholder does not file the statement, the registration shall elapse.

Scope of the trademark protection. New elements can be protected with a trademark registration, including, among others:

  • Smell and sound marks. Distinctive smells and sounds can be protected with a trademark registration.
  • Holographic signs. Such signs can now be protected with a trademark registration.
  • Certification marks. These marks distinguish products and services, whose qualities or characteristics had been certified by the titleholder of the mark, e.g. components, manufacturing conditions, quality, etc.
  • Trade dress protection. The plurality of operative and image elements, e.g. the size, color, label, packaging, decoration and any other that when combined differentiates products and services in the market, can be protected as a trademark.

Obstacles trademark registration. The obstacles for trademark registration are amended and supplemented. It its worth highlighting the incorporation of the bad faith filing as an obstacle for the registration. In this case, the registration is requested against the good practices, traditions and customs or if it aims to obtain an undue benefit or advantage affecting its rightful owner.

Likewise, it is worth mentioning the acknowledgment that certain registration obstacles can be prevented by filing the written consent of the interested party, e.g. for the registration of similar trademarks to a confusing degree with respect to a prior registration which protects the same products or services.

Opposition System. The parties will be allowed to file evidence and subsequently their final pleadings, without interrupting the term of the registration proceeding.

Statute of limitation of annulment actions. The statute of limitation to apply for the annulment of a trademark due to prior use is extended (from 3 to 5 years).

As per the amendments of the LPI, it is necessary to update is Regulations in order to set forth practical aspects of the new provisions. For more information, do not hesitate to contact me through Legalmondo.

Con l’art. 15 della Legge 25 ottobre 2017, n. 163 (c.d. Legge di delegazione europea), il Governo italiano è stato incaricato di recepire la Direttiva (UE) 2016/943 del Parlamento Europeo e del Consiglio dell’8 giugno 2016 sulla protezione del know-how riservato e delle informazioni commerciali riservate (segreti commerciali) contro l’acquisizione, l’utilizzo e la divulgazione illeciti.

Oltre al consueto adeguamento della normativa esistente, tra cui, in primis, al Codice della Proprietà intellettuale (c.p.i.), la legge delega impone al legislatore l’adozione di misure sanzionatorie penali e amministrative efficaci, proporzionate e dissuasive in caso di acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illecita del know-how e delle informazioni commerciali riservate, in modo da garantire l’efficace adempimento degli obblighi previsti dalla direttiva stessa.

L’iter di approvazione della direttiva

L’iter che ha condotto all’emanazione della direttiva è durato oltre cinque anni ed i segreti commerciali erano uno dei pochi settori, insieme ai modelli di utilità, in cui mancava un intervento europeo volto all’armonizzazione della relativa protezione. Pur non raggiungendo completamente il suo scopo – trattandosi di una direttiva, infatti, l’intervento legislativo dei singoli Stati potrà prevedere un livello di protezione differente – si tratta comunque di un passo in avanti notevole, soprattutto se rapportato all’art. 39 dell’accordo TRIPS. Nonostante il suddetto accordo internazionale, infatti, non tutti gli Stati avevano adottato definizioni nazionali dei segreti commerciali o dell’acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illeciti di un segreto commerciale e non vi era coerenza per quanto riguarda gli strumenti di tutela civili disponibili. Permaneva inoltre una disparità di trattamento per il terzo che aveva acquisito il segreto commerciale in buona fede ma veniva successivamente a conoscenza, al momento dell’utilizzo, che l’acquisizione faceva seguito ad una precedente acquisizione illecita da parte di un altro soggetto. In aggiunta a quanto sopra, le singole norme nazionali per il calcolo del risarcimento del danno non tengono sempre conto della natura immateriale dei segreti commerciali, rendendo difficile dimostrare il lucro cessante o l’ingiustificato arricchimento dell’autore della violazione.

Nel variegato panorama internazionale, tuttavia, l’Italia parte da una posizione di vantaggio poiché buona parte delle disposizioni della direttiva sono state recepite nei vari provvedimenti che hanno portato all’emanazione del Codice della proprietà intellettuale (D. Lgs. 10 febbraio 2005, n. 30) della c.d. direttiva Enforcement (2005/48/CE) e della recentissima emanazione della legge sul Whistleblowing (L. 30 novembre 2017, n. 179). Ad oggi la disciplina sostanziale è contenuta negli artt. 98 e 99 del c.p.i. e, per ciò che concerne i rimendi e il processo, negli artt. 120 e seguenti del Codice stesso.

In ogni caso, la presenza di una direttiva sulla materia ha il pregio di consentire, ai singoli giudici nazionali, il rinvio pregiudiziale ex art. 267 TFUE al fine di ottenere un intervento chiarificatore da parte della Corte di Giustizia ed invocare le relative pronunce delle Corti degli altri Stati come precedenti.

La definizione di segreto industriale

Venendo all’esame della direttiva, il primo capo concerne l’oggetto, l’ambito di applicazione e le definizioni. Tra queste ultime, la più importante è proprio quella che riguarda il segreto industriale definito come quelle informazioni che soddisfano tutti i seguenti requisiti:

  1. sono segrete nel senso che non sono, nel loro insieme o nella precisa configurazione e combinazione dei loro elementi, generalmente note o facilmente accessibili a persone che normalmente si occupano del tipo di informazioni in questione;
  2. hanno valore commerciale in quanto segrete;
  3. sono state sottoposte a misure ragionevoli, secondo le circostanze, da parte della persona al cui legittimo controllo sono soggette, a mantenerle segrete.

Rispetto all’attuale disciplina italiana, si rileva la differenza terminologica tra “valore commerciale” e “valore economico” ma tra i considerando si evidenzia che non è il valore di scambio il parametro di riferimento quanto, piuttosto, il vantaggio concorrenziale che può essere anche solo potenziale.

Emerge inoltre che la definizione di segreto commerciale non è tesa ad imporre restrizioni sull’oggetto da proteggere contro l’appropriazione illecita e, in ogni caso, ricomprende il know-how, le informazioni commerciali e le informazioni tecnologiche quando esiste un legittimo interesse a mantenere la riservatezza oppure una legittima aspettativa circa la tutela di tale riservatezza.

Peraltro, dalla suddetta definizione vanno esclusi le informazioni trascurabili, l’esperienza e le competenze acquisite dai dipendenti nel normale svolgimento del loro lavoro, nonché le informazioni che sono generalmente note o facilmente accessibili alle persone all’interno delle cerchie che normalmente si occupano del tipo di informazioni in questione.

Le attività lecite e illecite

Il secondo Capo della direttiva distingue le circostanze in cui l’acquisizione, utilizzo e la divulgazione dei segreti commerciali può ritenersi lecito od illecito e vengono individuate delle ipotesi eccezionali in cui non si applicano le misure previste per la tutela del segreto commerciale.

Tra le attività considerate lecite rientrano:

  1. a) la scoperta o la creazione indipendente;
  2. b) il c.d. reverse engineering, definito come osservazione, studio, smontaggio o prova di un prodotto o di un oggetto messo a disposizione del pubblico o lecitamente in possesso del soggetto che acquisisce le informazioni ed è libero da qualsiasi obbligo giuridicamente valido di imporre restrizioni all’acquisizione del segreto commerciale;
  3. c) esercizio del diritto all’informazione e alla consultazione da parte di lavoratori o rappresentanti dei lavoratori, in conformità del diritto e delle prassi sia dell’Unione Europea che delle singole nazioni;
  4. d) qualsiasi altra pratica che, secondo le circostanze, è conforme a leali pratiche commerciali.

Sul punto, le indicazioni della direttiva sono sicuramente più dettagliate rispetto a quanto previsto dall’art. 99 c.p.i. il quale si limita ad escludere dalla tutela le informazioni acquisite in modo indipendente da un terzo.

La medesima conclusione emerge dal raffronto tra la disciplina italiana e quella comunitaria in merito alle condotte illecite: la prima, infatti, si limita a sancire un generico divieto di acquisizione, rivelazione a terzi o utilizzo abusivo delle informazioni; viceversa, secondo la direttiva, l’acquisizione di un segreto commerciale senza il consenso del detentore è da considerarsi illecita qualora compiuta con l’accesso non autorizzato, l’appropriazione o la copia non autorizzata di documenti, oggetti, materiali, sostanze o file elettronici sottoposti al lecito controllo del detentore del segreto commerciale, che contengono il segreto commerciale o dai quali il segreto commerciale può essere desunto, oppure, con qualsiasi altra condotta che, secondo le circostanze, è considerata contraria a leali pratiche commerciali. L’utilizzo o la divulgazione, invece, saranno illeciti se posti in essere senza il consenso del detentore del segreto commerciale da una persona abbia acquisito il segreto commerciale illecitamente, se in violazione un accordo di riservatezza o qualsiasi altro obbligo di non divulgare il segreto commerciale oppure di un obbligo contrattuale o di altra natura che impone limiti all’utilizzo del segreto commerciale.

Parimenti illecito sarà il caso in cui il soggetto che utilizzi il segreto sia a conoscenza che quest’ultimo era stato ottenuto direttamente o indirettamente da un terzo che a sua volta lo utilizzava o lo divulgava illecitamente.

Da ultimo, anche la produzione, l’offerta, la commercializzazione l’importazione, l’esportazione o lo stoccaggio di merci costituenti violazione saranno illeciti.

Tra le eccezioni viene compreso, invece, il fenomeno del whistleblowing ovverosia il caso in cui l’acquisizione, l’utilizzo o la divulgazione del segreto commerciale siano avvenuti al fine di rivelare una condotta scorretta, un’irregolarità o un’attività illegale allo scopo di proteggere l’interesse pubblico generale.

Altre ipotesi riguardano la divulgazione dei lavoratori ai loro rappresentanti nell’ambito del legittimo esercizio delle funzioni di questi ultimi e la tutela di un legittimo interesse riconosciuto dal diritto dell’Unione o dal diritto nazionale.

Anche l’esercizio dei diritti alla libertà di espressione e di informazione, ai sensi della Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione europea, costituisce un’eccezione. Peraltro, al di là dell’ampio respiro della disposizione, sarà difficile bilanciare, in concreto, gli interessi sopra richiamati con la legittima tutela del segreto stesso.

Le misure per garantire la riservatezza dei segreti nei processi

Nel dare atto, tra i considerando, che spesso il rischio di compromettere la riservatezza di un segreto commerciale nel corso di un procedimento giudiziario costituisce un deterrente, per il titolare, dall’instaurare procedimenti volti alla relativa tutela, la direttiva prevede, al Capo terzo, che gli Stati assicurino la segretezza delle informazioni attraverso l’adozione di misure che contemplino quanto meno la possibilità di:

– restringere l’accesso a qualunque documento contenente un segreto commerciale;

– limitare l’accesso alle udienze ad un numero limitato di persone;

– rendere disponibili le decisioni giudiziarie in una versione non riservata, nella quale i punti contenenti segreti commerciali siano stati oscurati.

Peraltro, quanto meno in Italia, le vigenti norme procedurali già garantiscono il rispetto delle misure sopra indicate.

Inoltre, sia per quanto concerne i procedimenti cautelari che i giudizi di merito, la direttiva individua le misure che, su richiesta del detentore del segreto, le competenti autorità giudiziarie possano emanare nei confronti del presunto autore della violazione: si va dalla cessazione/divieto di utilizzo o divulgazione del segreto commerciale, passando per il divieto di produzione/ importazione/esportazione di merci costituenti violazione, sino al sequestro e distruzione delle merci costituenti la violazione.

Tra le circostanze che, caso per caso, dovranno essere tenute in considerazione per l’ottenimento delle misure richieste, la direttiva enuncia: il valore o le altre caratteristiche specifiche del segreto commerciale, le misure adottate per proteggere il segreto commerciale, la condotta del convenuto nell’acquisire, utilizzare o divulgare il segreto commerciale,
l’impatto dell’utilizzo o della divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale,
i legittimi interessi delle parti e l’impatto che l’accoglimento o il rigetto delle misure potrebbe avere per le parti, i legittimi interessi di terzi, l’interesse pubblico e
la tutela dei diritti fondamentali. Le suddette misure, inoltre, potranno essere subordinate alla concessione di una cauzione adeguata.

Il risarcimento del danno

Oltre a quanto sopra, il provvedimento delinea gli elementi che debbono essere tenuti in considerazione per la determinazione del risarcimento del danno subìto. L’autorità giudiziaria dovrà valutare le conseguenze economiche negative, compreso il lucro cessante subìto dalla parte lesa, i profitti realizzati illecitamente dall’autore della violazione e, ove opportuno, elementi diversi dai fattori economici, quale ad esempio il pregiudizio morale causato al detentore del segreto commerciale dall’acquisizione, dall’utilizzo o dalla divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale. La norma prevede inoltre che, in alternativa a quanto sopra, il risarcimento possa essere determinato in via forfettaria, basandosi sull’importo che l’autore della violazione avrebbe dovuto corrispondere al titolare se gli avesse richiesto l’autorizzazione ad utilizzare il segreto stesso.

Nel recepire la direttiva, gli Stati potranno inoltre limitare la responsabilità dei dipendenti in caso di danni causati involontariamente.

Nel bilanciamento degli interessi convolti, la direttiva prevede anche il risarcimento dell’eventuale danno subìto da colui che è stato soggetto alle misure sopra richiamate nel caso in cui queste si estingano per fatto imputabile all’attore oppure se sia stato successivamente accertato che non vi sono stati acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale né la relativa minaccia.

I rimedi proposti dalla direttiva andranno quindi ad integrarsi, quanto meno per quanto riguarda i segreti commerciali, con quanto già previsto dal codice sulla proprietà intellettuale italiano: il diritto di informazione, la discovery e l’ordine di ritiro dal commercio contro intermediari.

La prescrizione

Importante novità riguarda infine la prescrizione: in base alla direttiva, gli Stati dovranno disciplinare la decorrenza iniziale del termine, le cause di sospensione o interruzione dei diritti e delle azioni per chiedere l’applicazione delle misure di tutela previste. Tale durata, inoltre, non potrà superare i sei anni.

A differenza di altri diritti di proprietà intellettuale, la protezione dei segreti commerciali non è limitata nel tempo – benché il valore di alcune informazioni possa senz’altro diminuire sensibilmente negli anni – come avviene, ad esempio, in caso di brevetto; a differenza di quest’ultimo, inoltre, non ci sono procedure ufficiali o costi diretti (quali tasse di registro o di rinnovo) per ottenere la protezione.

Ciò non di meno, la tutela sarà ipotizzabile solo nel caso in cui i requisiti richiesti dalla definizione di segreto commerciale siano tutti presenti.

A tal fine è fondamentale che le imprese valutino con cautela le misure di protezione interne, in modo da garantire la segretezza dell’informazione.

Particolare attenzione richiederà la revisione dei contratti in essere, sia con i terzi che con i dipendenti, nonché l’aggiornamento delle procedure interne anche in relazione ai rischi che l’utilizzo degli odierni strumenti elettronici comportano, in modo da preservare livelli di protezione adeguati.

L’autore di questo articolo è Giacomo Gori.

The fourth Industrial Revolution, currently experienced by global economy, displays a melting-pot of a wide range of new technologies combined one another, impacting on every aspect of economy, industry and society by progressively blurring the borders of the physical, digital and biological spheres.

The growth of robotics, of artificial and virtual intelligence, of connectivity among objects and of the latter with humans, is contributing to strengthening the virtual side of economy, made of its intangible assets. Even trade is tending more and more towards a trade of intellectual property rights rather than trade of physical objects.

In such a scenario, protection of intellectual property is becoming increasingly important: the value of innovation embedded in any product is likely to increase as compared to the value of the physical object itself. In other words, protection of intellectual property could significantly affect economic growth and trade and shall necessarily go forward as the economy becomes more and more virtual.

Future growth of the 4.0 economy depends on maintaining policies that, on one hand allow connectivity among millions of objects and, on the other, provide for strong patent protection mechanisms, thus, encouraging large and risky investments in technology innovation.

Are SMEs, which represent the beating heart of the Italian economy, ready for all this? Has Italy adopted any policy aimed at boosting innovation and the relevant protection for SMEs?

After more than four years since the launch of the Startup Act (Decree Law No 179 of 18 October 2012), Italian legislation confirms being among the most internationally advanced programs for innovative business support strategies. If we look at the Start Up Manifesto Policy Tracker Startup Manifesto Policy Tracker (a manifesto for entrepreneurship and innovation to power growth in the European Union), published in March 2016, Italy is in second place among the 28 EU Member States, in terms of the take up rate of recommendations made by the European Commission on the innovative entrepreneurship issue.

The Annual Report to Parliament on the implementation of legislation in support of innovative startups and SMEs (Edition 2016) confirms the results of the Startup Manifesto Policy Tracker: Italian ecosystem has grown in terms of number of startups recorded (+41% on the previous year), of human resources involved (+47,5%), of average value of production (+33%) and, finally, of funding raising (+128%, considering access to credit via the SME Guarantee Fund).

This growth is the outcome of both the inventiveness and the attention to innovation that have always characterized Italian entrepreneurs as well as of the progress made by Italian legislation over the past years: changes were introduced in order to boost the national system for business startups and, in some cases, to promote innovative entrepreneurship as a whole.

Adopted measures include, for example: the implementing Ministerial decrees on tax credits for R&D investments; the ITA Service Card for innovative SMEs, the multimedia, bilingual online platform #ItalyFrontiers (the aim of which is to promote capital investment and encourage open innovation projects involving innovative Italian businesses); Italia Startup Visa and Italia Startup Hub (the renewal, under the 2016 Decree on Immigration Flows, of a preferential procedure for the granting of visas and the conversion of permits to stay for self-employed for non-EU citizens wanting to move to Italy or remain there to start up an innovative enterprise); the launch of a new simplified online company incorporation procedure that enables innovative startups to be opened as limited liability companies, granting significant time and cost reductions; the extension (until 2016) and the reinforcement of fiscal incentives available for investment in innovative startups; finally, the extension of the free, simplified access to the Guarantee Fund to include innovative SMEs in order to make it easier for them to obtain credit.

The importance of Intellectual Property in the modern economy

A national policy that has a target of incentivizing the use of Intellectual Property is a policy that will have beneficial effects on the entire national (and international) economy.

Proof of this, are the results of the studies carried out by the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and the European Patent Office (EPO) on the contribution of intellectual property rights (IPR) on the EU economy.

The study analyzed the effects of intellectual property on the EU in terms of gross domestic production, occupation, wages and trade. Here are some of the most interesting data:

– 42% of the total economic activity in the EU (approximately EUR 5.7 trillion) and 38% of occupation (approximately 82 million workplaces) is attributable to IPR-intensive industries;

– IPR-intensive industries pay significantly higher wages than other industries, with a wage premium of 46%;

– IPR-intensive industries tend to be more resilient against the economic crisis;

– IPR-intensive industries account for about 90% of EU trade with the rest of the world, generating a trade surplus for the EU of EUR 96 billion;

– about 40% of large companies own IPRs.

The data gathered by this study should raise social and political awareness as to the importance of stimulating not only large companies, SMEs and startups in general, but also those, which use intellectual property.

The innovation criteria

An interesting measure that is showing good results in relation to the dissemination of IPR companies in Italy is the introduction, thanks to the Startup Act, of the concept of innovative startup.

The Startup Act provides facilitating measures (e.g.: incorporation and following statutory modifications by means of a standard model with digital signature, cuts to red tape and fees, flexible corporate management, extension of terms for covering losses, exemption from regulations on dummy companies, exemption from the duty to affix the compliance visa for compensation of VAT credit) applicable to companies which have, as well as other requirements, at least one of the following requirements:

– at least 15% of the company’s expenses can be attributed to R&D activities;

– at least 1/3 of the total workforce are PhD students, the holders of a PhD or researchers; or, alternatively, 2/3 of the total workforce must hold a Master’s degree;

– the enterprise is the holder, depositary or licensee of a registered patent (industrial property), or the owner and author of a registered software.

The Startup Act is still having positive effects on the startups demographic trends. As a matter of fact, during the first six months of 2016 there has been a growth rate of 15,5% in the number of registered companies.

The success of the Startup Act brought the Italian legislator to extend with the Investment Compact (Decree Law No 3 of 24 January 2015)  most of the benefits provided for innovative startups also to innovative SMEs.

By the Investment Compact the Italian Government recognized that innovative startups and innovative SMEs represent two sequential stages of the same continuous and coherent growth path. In a context as the Italian one, dominated by SMEs, it is fundamental to strengthen this kind of enterprises.

The measures in question apply only to SMEs, as defined by the European Commission Recommendation 361/2003 (companies with less than 250 employees and with a total turnover that does not exceed € 43 million), which have, as well as other requirements, at least two of the following requirements:

– at least 3% of either the company’s expenses or its turnover (the largest value is considered) can be attributed to R&D activities;

– at least 1/5 of the total workforce are PhD students, PhD holders or researchers; alternatively, 1/3 of the total workforce must hold a Master’s degree;

– the enterprise is the holder, depositary or licensee of a registered patent (industrial property) or the owner of a program for original registered computers.

Unfortunately to this day the Investment Compact has not produced the expected results: on one hand, there is a problem connected to the not well-defined concept of “innovative SMEs”, differently from what happened with startups; on the other hand, there are structural shortcomings in the communication of government incentives: these communication issues are particularly significant if we consider that the policy on innovative SMEs is a series of self-selecting, non-automatic incentives.

Patent Box

Another important measure related to the IP exploitation is the Patent Box, the optional tax rule applicable to income derived from the exploitation of intellectual property rights.

The Patent Box rules were introduced by the 2015 Stability Act and give to businesses, from 2015 onwards, the option of tax-exempting up to 50% of the income derived from the commercial exploitation of software protected by copyright, industrial patents for inventions, utility models and complementary protection certificates, designs, models, company information and technical/industrial know-how, provided that they can be protected as secret information according to the Italian Code of Industrial Property: meaning patented intangibles or assets that have been registered and are awaiting a patent.

Originally, also the exploitation of trademarks allowed entrepreneurs to choose the Patent Box optional tax rule, but a very recent Decree  erased that provision by excluding trademarks from the Patent Box regime. This exclusion has just been introduced in order to align the Italian Patent Box to the prescriptions of the Organization for Economy Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Said policy has a dual purpose: on one hand, it seeks to encourage Italian entrepreneurs to develop, protect and use intellectual property; on the other hand, it intends to make the Italian market more attractive for national and foreign long-term investment, while protecting the Italian tax base. The incentive encourages the placement, and preservation in Italy, of intangibles that are currently held abroad by Italian or foreign companies and also fosters investments in R&D.

The Patent Box is certainly of great importance for Italian economy and has relevant merits, but it can be further improved. During the convention held on the 8th of May 2017 in Milan entitled “Fiscal levers for business development: the patent box example”, organized by Indicam, the institute for fight against counterfeiting established by Centromarca, it was highlighted that one aspect to improve is that of the Patent Box’s appeal to SMEs: there is a need for this policy, which was thought mainly for large companies, to be really effective. One solution, proposed by the Vice-Minister of Finance and Economy Luigi Casero, guest of the convention, is to «introduce some statistical clusters, a kind of sector studies, an intervention of analysis and evaluation of the fiscal indicators of a specific type of company».

UPC

The last matter that deserves to be mentioned is that of the Unified Patent Court: Italy has ratified the United Patent Court Agreement on the 10th of February 2017.

As it is known, in order to start its operations the Unified Patent Court needs the ratification also of United Kingdom. Moreover, one of UPC central division should be located in London in addition to the ones in Paris, Munich. After Brexit this maintaining of the London Court appears inappropriate both under a juridical and an EU opportunistic point of view.

As provided for the UPC Convention a section of the central division should be in Italy because it is the fourth EU member state (after France, Germany and the UK) as to the number of validated European patents in its territory: the London Court should be therefore relocated to Milan.

Moreover Italy is one of the main countries in the EU applying for not only European patents but also trademarks and designs (and so contributes substantial fees) yet it does not host any European IP institutions.

An Italian section of the UPC would certainly bring a higher awareness, also of smaller enterprises, in relation to the importance of IP protection.

Conclusion

A disruptive and unprecedented transformation is taking place, involving industry, economy and society, with its main whose main driver being the relentless ascent of its intangible component.

What we have to do, as a society, is follow this transformation by changing our way of thinking and working, abandoning the old paradigms of the analogic era.

Policy measures as the Startup Act, the Investment Compact and the Patent Box are surely important initial steps that are bringing certain positive effects, but they are not enough and they have not yet achieved the maximum results.

As pointed out by the #StartupSurvey, the first national statistical survey of innovative startups, launched by the Italian National Institute of Statistics and the Ministry of Economic Development (the data were gathered by a mass mailing to all the innovative startups listed in the special section on 31 December 2015), the majority of Italian startups and SMEs (52,3%) have not adopted any formal mechanism, as the ownership of an industrial patent, to protect their innovation. Only 16,1% of the respondents owned a patent and only 11,8% owned a registered software.

Among the reasons that bring startups to not adopt protection mechanisms, the majority of the entrepreneurs (48,4%) claimed to be convinced that the innovation of their enterprise could not be taken away by third parties. On the other hand, a considerable number (25,5%) said that they were not aware of the necessary strategies.

The data gathered by the survey confirm that there is a communication and information issue, as noted in the paragraph above, to be solved.

An interesting initiative relating to this problem is the new questionnaire realized by the Head Office for the fight against counterfeiting of the Ministry of Economic Development. This new and free service has been conceived, in particular, for startups and SMEs, allowing them to carry out an online self-assessment in relation to intellectual property.

The aim of the questionnaire is to make the enterprises aware of their intellectual property range and to direct them towards the adoption of appropriate strategies for the valorization of their intangible assets.

Poland has recently become quite famous for its skilled and resourceful IT specialists. Each year thousands of new computer engineers (programmers, developers, testers, designers etc.) enter into the market, warmly welcomed by domestic and multinational companies. A big part of these young talents open their own firm or business as free lancers developing software for clients from European countries as well as from US, Canada, Japan, China, etc.

However, companies who want to cooperate with these partners and assign software development to a Polish IT company or freelancer should be aware that the copyright law in Poland is very strict, as it mainly protects the creator and not the client. Therefore, to be on a safe side, it is better to follow these 7 basic rules:

  1. Never start cooperation with an IT specialist or an IT company without a formal agreement. And I mean a real agreement, in a written form, with signatures of persons who can validly contract on behalf of the companies. The form is very important because – under Polish law – copyrights transfer and exclusive license agreements not fulfilling form conditions are null and void. Moreover, if there is no agreement, Polish copyright rules will apply to all intellectual property matters.
  2. Please remember that software is a creation protected by copyright law. Therefore you should consider whether you want to acquire the entire intellectual property rights or you just need a license. If you need a full IP transfer, you need to put it expressly in the agreement; otherwise you will only get a non-exclusive licence. And these, in several cases, will not be useful from a business point of view. If a license is enough, it is advisable to agree if it will be exclusive or non-exclusive.
  3. When drafting an IP clause, be detailed and clear. If you want to be able to decompile and disassembly the binary code, specify it in the IP clause. If you want to be able to introduce modifications to the source code, specify it in the IP clause. If you want to sublicense the software, specify it in the IP clause. The IP clause shall contain the description of any way you want to use the software, whether on mobile devices or on personal computers, any other electronic device or via internet (e.g. cloud computing). And believe me, when I write “specify it in the IP clause” it means that you really, really have to put it there. Otherwise it will be null and void and you may face a situation where your smart IT engineer, after getting paid, will sue you for the IP infringement.
  4. Remember that you should indicate the timeframe and the geographical scope of the license or IP transfer. If you do not specify it expressly in the agreement, you will only be entitled to a 5-year license, automatically expiring afterwards.
  5. Draft carefully a clause related to termination of the agreement. Under Polish law the licensor may terminate the license agreement granted for an indefinite period of time upon 1-year notice. If you do not want to find yourself in a situation where you lose the software IP rights in the middle of a big project, make sure that from the very beginning you are on a safe side.
  6. Make sure that your partner is obliged to transfer you upon request all software documentation and the source code.
  7. Make sure that you have a good indemnification clause with no limitation of liability. Often Polish IT companies subcontract some part of the development work to free lancers. You never know if they will conclude proper agreements with their subcontractors and if they will legally acquire the IP of the software that they will later sell you. There is always the risk that in the future some Polish IT engineer you never met will raise IP infringement claims against you, trying to prove that he/she actually developed the software. In such a situation an indemnification clause will help you recovering the costs from your partner.

Talking to clients five years ago the trend was clear, application was to be filed for the EU Trademark only, as it was faster, broader, in relation to the geographical scope cheaper and easier to handle. However as we experience now the EU trade mark has some downsides for which reason it is advisable to apply for a national trademark alongside the EU trade mark. And these are the reasons why:

Genuine Use

One of the main risks with trade marks is the fact that they must be used five years after registration. That use however must be genuine. According to the ECJ (C 149/11) “there is ‘genuine use’ of a trade mark where the mark is used in accordance with its essential function, which is to guarantee the identity of the origin of the goods or services for which it is registered, in order to create or preserve an outlet for those goods or services; genuine use does not include token use for the sole purpose of preserving the rights conferred by the mark. When assessing whether use of the trade mark is genuine, regard must be had to all the facts and circumstances relevant to establishing whether there is real commercial exploitation of the mark in the course of trade, particularly the usages regarded as warranted in the economic sector concerned as a means of maintaining or creating market share for the goods or services protected by the mark, the nature of those goods or services, the characteristics of the market and the scale and frequency of use of the mark.“

The problem which occurs from time to time is whether a trade mark used only in one member state or in a specific part of that member state is to be regarded as genuine use in the meaning of these ECJ findings. Whilst the ECJ (C 149/11) has not denied genuine use because of a territorial restricted use within one member state per se it still has not excluded that possibility and what is more has even given the national courts the decision making authority to assess “whether the mark in question is used in accordance with its essential function and for the purpose of creating or maintaining market share for the goods or services protected.“ Consequently a French court could decide that a use of a mark in Germany is insufficient for upholding a EU trade mark and thereby decide that the mark has to be deregistered. This reason alone provides for the necessity to have a national trade mark as plan B.

Counterclaim

When the plaintiff’s trade mark is a German trade mark, there is no possibility for the defendant to raise a counterclaim calling for a revocation of that plaintiff’s trade mark. The defendant has to file for an additional cancellation order before the German Patent and Trademark office. That additional cancellation proceeding however in general does not even bar the violation proceedings. So these will often be decided long before the cancellation proceedings in the last instance.

That is different when it comes to the EU trade mark. The EU trade mark can be declared void during (!) the violation proceedings by filing a counterclaim. Alternatively, the EU trade mark court hearing a counterclaim for revocation or for a declaration of invalidity may stay the proceedings on application by the proprietor of the EU trade mark and after hearing the other parties and may request the defendant to submit an application for revocation or for a declaration of invalidity to the Office. With the consequences that the violation proceeding is dead for ten years which it takes to pursue the cancellation proceedings through all instances.

Place of jurisdiction

The place of jurisdiction of a EU trade mark is limited to the place where the event which gave rise to the harm occurred (“Handlungsort”). The German trade mark however also provides for the place where the harm arose (‘Erfolgsort’) as place of jurisdiction. That however gives the plaintiff much more possibility to forum shop.

Statute of limitation

The EU trade mark does not provide a uniform statute of limitation. The ECJ (C 479/12) has decided that claims for injunctive reliefs become time-bared under the regulations of the national law. However in some case it can be very unclear which national law applies and therefore the same case can be seen differently in the different countries. When the plaintiff’s trade mark is a national trade mark the scope of application of the national statutes of limitation is clear and there are no further insecurities which are never to relish when have court proceedings.

The author of this post is Ilja Czernik.

The eSports sector is growing rapidly as illustrated by the following figures:

In 2017, the eSports economy grew to US-$696 million, a year-on-year growth of 41.3%.

Brands invested $517 million in 2017, which is expected to double by 2020.

Worldwide, the global eSports audience reached 385 million in 2017, with 191 million regular viewers.

(cf. https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/global-esports-market-report-2017-light/)

North America continues to be the largest eSports market with revenues of US-$257 million. There is also continual development of eSports in Germany, however. The professional soccer teams of VfL Wolfsburg and FC Schalke 04 have their own eSports teams (http://www.gameswirtschaft.de/sport/esports-fussball-bundesliga/), and the German eSports Federation Deutschland has recently been founded, with the Federal Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU) as a founding member (http://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/ESBD-E-Sport-Bund-Deutschland-geht-an-den-Start-162957).

In areas where such a lot of money can be made, legal obstacles are never far away. Here, they comprise a wide range of all kinds of different topics.

The initial focus is on copyrights and ancillary copyrights. Soccer stadiums, buildings, and avatars may enjoy copyright protection just as much as the computer program on which the games are based. Another item of discussion is whether eAthletes are to be classified as “performing artists” in accordance with Section 73 German Copyright Act. In addition, the question arises as to who enjoys ancillary copyrights under Section 81 Copyright Act as organizer of eSports events and whether such organizers have the same domiciliary rights as the organizers of a regular sports event.

In terms of trademark and design law, it will have to be discussed to what extent products and brand images represent infringements of the Trademark Act and the Design Act. In the case of brands and trademarks in particular, the question will be to what extent they are design objects or indications of origin.
Finally, there will also be regulatory issues that need to be observed. In addition to the use of cheatbots and doping substances, the main focus will be on the protection of minors and the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty with its advertising restrictions.
In conclusion, one suggestion: keep an eye on the eSports movement! Companies that want to stay ahead of the curve, should deal with the aforementioned issues and all further questions in timely manner.

The author of this post is Ilja Czernik.

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    Mexico – Amendments to Industrial Property Law

    21 Giugno 2018

    • Mexico
    • Proprietà industriale e intellettuale

    Il codice della proprietà intellettuale, all’art. 20, prevede che il titolare del marchio d’impresa ha il diritto di vietare ai terzi, salvo proprio consenso, l’uso di un segno:

    1. identico al marchio per prodotti o servizi identici a quelli per cui esso è stato registrato;
    2. identico o simile al marchio registrato, per prodotti o servizi identici o affini, se a causa dell’identità o somiglianza fra i segni e dell’identità o affinità fra i prodotti o servizi, possa determinarsi un rischio di confusione per il pubblico, che può consistere anche in un rischio di associazione fra i due segni;
    3. identico o simile al marchio registrato per prodotti o servizi anche non affini, se il marchio registrato goda nello stato di rinomanza e se l’uso del segno senza giusto motivo consente di trarre indebitamente vantaggio dal carattere distintivo o dalla rinomanza del marchio o reca pregiudizio agli stessi.

    Analoghe disposizioni si rinvengono nell’art. 9, n. 2 nel Regolamento (UE) 2017/1001 sul Marchio dell’Unione Europea anche se in questo caso si parla di marchi che godono di notorietà.

    Le prime due ipotesi riguardano la maggior parte dei marchi e sono tese dirimere il conflitto tra due segni che siano identici per prodotti o servizi identici (sub a), cosiddetta doppia identità, oppure tra due marchi che siano identici o simili per prodotti o servizi identici o affini, se a causa dell’identità o somiglianza fra i segni e dell’identità o affinità fra i prodotti o servizi, possa determinarsi un rischio di confusione per il pubblico (sub b).

    Per “affinità” si intende una similarità merceologica tra i prodotti o i servizi (ad esempio tra calze e filati) oppure un collegamento tra i bisogni che i prodotti o i servizi intendono soddisfare (come spesso accade nel settore della moda, in cui è abituale ad esempio che lo stesso produttore di calzature offra in vendita anche cinture). Non a caso, benché la rilevanza sia amministrativa e non volta delineare l’affinità, al momento del deposito della domanda di registrazione di un marchio, il richiedente deve indicare i prodotti e/o dei servizi per i quali vuole ottenere la protezione tra i beni ed i servizi presenti nella Classificazione internazionale di Nizza di cui al relativo accordo del 1957 (giunto oggi all’undicesima edizione del 01.01.2019). Anzi, a seguito del leading case “IP Translator” (Sentenza della Corte di Giustizia UE del 19 giugno 2012, C-307/10), il richiedente è tenuto ad individuare, all’interno di ciascuna classe, i singoli beni o servizi per i quali invoca la protezione, in modo da delimitare correttamente la tutela del marchio.

    Al di là dei suddetti marchi ordinari, vi sono appunto alcuni segni che, col tempo, hanno acquisito una certa notorietà per i quali, come previsto dall’ipotesi sub c), la protezione si estende anche ai prodotti e/o ai servizi che non sono affini (e tanto meno identici) a quelli per il quale il marchio è registrato.

    La ratio sottesa a questa alla suddetta norma è quella di contrastare il fenomeno contraffattivo dovuto all’indebita appropriazione di pregi. Nel settore della moda, ad esempio, si assiste di sovente a condotte contraffattive volte a sfruttare in modo parassitario l’avviamento commerciale dei brands più blasonati al fine di indurre il consumatore all’acquisto del prodotto alla luce delle maggiori qualità – in senso lato – del prodotto.

    La protezione accordata dalla norma in parola mira quindi a tutelare anche il cosiddetto selling power del marchio, inteso come elevata capacità di vendita dovuta alla funzione evocativa e suggestiva del marchio, anche in ragione degli ingenti investimenti pubblicitari effettuati dal titolare del marchio stesso, ed in grado di travalicare i limiti dell’affinità del settore merceologico a cui appartiene il marchio.

    Si parla infatti di tutela “ultra-merceologica” – che prescinde dal rischio di confusione di cui all’ipotesi sub lettera b) – invocabile allorché sussistano alcuni presupposti.

    In primo luogo, il titolare ha l’onere di provare che il proprio segno gode di rinomanza, sia a livello territoriale che con riferimento al pubblico interessato.

    Ma cosa si intende per rinomanza e quali sono i requisiti? Nel silenzio delle norme, la giurisprudenza comunitaria, con la nota sentenza General Motors (Corte di Giustizia CE, 14 settembre 1999, C-375/97) l’ha definita come “l’attitudine del segno a comunicare un messaggio al quale sia possibile agganciarsi anche in difetto di una confusione sull’origine” sancendo che la tutela possa essere accordata se il marchio è “conosciuto da una parte significativa del pubblico interessato ai prodotti o servizi da esso contraddistinti”.

    Secondo la Corte, tra i parametri che il giudice nazionale deve tenere in considerazione per determinare il grado di notorietà di un marchio, rientrano la quota di mercato, l’intensità, l’ambito geografico e la durata del suo uso, nonché gli investimenti realizzati dall’impresa per promuoverlo.

    Naturalmente, maggiore è la notorietà del marchio, maggiore sarà l’estensione della tutela sino a ricomprendere ambiti merceologici sempre meno affini.

    Il pubblico di riferimento, continua la Corte “è quello interessato a tale marchio d’impresa, vale a dire, secondo il prodotto o il servizio posto in commercio, il grande pubblico ovvero un pubblico più specializzato, ad esempio un determinato ambiente professionale”.

    La rinomanza, inoltre, deve possedere anche una certa estensione territoriale e, in tal senso, la suddetta pronuncia ha precisato che il requisito è soddisfatto nel caso in cui la notorietà sia in una parte sostanziale dello Stato membro, tenendo conto sia delle dimensioni della zona geografica interessata che della quantità di persone ivi presenti.

    Per quanto concerne il marchio EU, la Corte di Giustizia, con la sentenza Pago International (Corte di Giustizia CE, 6 ottobre 2009,C‑301/07) ha statuito che il marchio deve essere conosciuto “da una parte significativa del pubblico interessato ai prodotti o servizi contraddistinti dal marchio, in una parte sostanziale del territorio della Comunità” e che, tenuto conto delle circostanze del caso concreto, “l’intero territorio di uno Stato membro” (nella fattispecie si trattava dell’Austria) “può essere considerato parte sostanziale del territorio della Comunità”. Tale interpretazione, a ben vedere, è conseguenza del fatto che la protezione di un marchio UE si estende a tutto il territorio dell’Unione Europea.

    Affinché il marchio rinomato possa essere tutelato non è necessaria una somiglianza tra i segni tale da ingenerare un rischio di confusione. Tuttavia, ci deve essere un nesso (concetto ripreso più volte dalla giurisprudenza europea e da quella nazionale) tra i due marchi nel senso che il marchio posteriore deve evocare quello anteriore nella mente del consumatore medio.

    Per poter beneficiare della tutela ultra-merceologica, le suddette norme richiedono che il titolare del marchio debba essere in grado di fornire adeguata prova del fatto che l’appropriazione del segno, da parte di terzi, costituisca indebito vantaggio per questi o, in alternativa, che arrechi un pregiudizio al titolare stesso. Naturalmente il presunto contraffattore potrà provare il giusto motivo che, come tale, può costituire un’esimente idonea a vincere la protezione accordata.

    Peraltro, il titolare del marchio non è costretto a provare una lesione effettiva, essendo sufficiente, per giurisprudenza consolidata, “un rischio futuro non ipotetico di indebito vantaggio o di pregiudizio”, benché serio e concreto.

    Il pregiudizio potrebbe riguardare il carattere distintivo del marchio anteriore e si verifica, “quando risulta indebolita l’idoneità di tale marchio ad identificare come provenienti dal suo titolare i prodotti o i servizi per i quali è stato registrato e viene utilizzato, per il fatto che l’uso del marchio posteriore fa disperdere l’identità del marchio anteriore e dell’impresa corrispondente nella mente del pubblico.”

    Parimenti, il pregiudizio potrebbe anche concernere la rinomanza e si verifica quando l’uso per i prodotti o i servizi offerti dal terzo possono essere percepiti dal pubblico in modo tale che il potere del marchio che gode di rinomanza ne risulti compromesso. Ciò avviene sia nel caso in cui si abbia un uso osceno o degradante del marchio anteriore, che nel caso in cui il contesto nel quale viene inserito il marchio posteriore risulti incompatibile con l’immagine che il marchio rinomato ha costruito nel tempo, magari attraverso costose campagne marketing.

    L’indebito vantaggio ricorre, infine, quando il terzo, aggancia parassitariamente il proprio marchio alla notorietà o alla distintività del marchio rinomato, traendone benefici di varia natura.

    Uno degli esempi più recenti di tutela ultra-merceologica ha visto coinvolte Barilla e un’azienda tessile per aver quest’ultima commercializzato cuscini che riproducevano le forme di alcuni dei biscotti più famosi, contrassegnandoli con i medesimi marchi dapprima e poi, a seguito di diffida, con i nomi degli stessi biscotti con l’aggiunta del suffisso “-oso” (“Abbraccioso”, “Pandistelloso”, ecc.). Stante la rinomanza acquisita dai marchi della nota azienda alimentare, i relativi marchi sono stati riconosciuti meritevoli della suddetta tutela estesa a servizi e prodotti non affini. Il Tribunale di Milano, infatti, con sentenza del 25 gennaio 2018, ha statuito, tra l’altro, che la condotta perpetrata dall’azienda tessile, attribuendo ai propri prodotti i pregi di quelli della Barilla, abbia configurato un’ipotesi di concorrenza sleale parassitaria per appropriazione di pregi, ai sensi dell’art. 2598 c.c. La notorietà̀ dei marchi denominativi e figurativi registrati dalla Barilla, in sostanza, ha consentito di tutelare anche prodotti non affini, stante l’indebito vantaggio derivante dalla rinomanza del segno altrui.

    L’autore di questo articolo è Giacomo Gori.

    Last 7 June, legislative decree no.63 of 11 May 2018 implementing EU Directive no.2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on “on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure”, was published in the Official Journal of the Republic of Italy, pursuant to article 15 of Delegated Law no. 163 of 25 October 2017.

    The purpose of this act was twofold: on the one hand, it assisted in matching the already existing Italian legislation – in particular, articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property – with the new EU legislation; whilst, on the other hand, it implemented new and more effective provisions of law on the protection of trade secrets.

    The European Union introduced Directive no. 943/2016 in order to harmonize and ensure consistent protection of know-how and trade secrets on European level: in fact, irrespective of article 39 of the TRIPs Agreement, Italy was the only EU member having a domestic definition and a specific protection of trade secrets and no EU law has been passed governing their unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure. This factor weakened the ability of several countries to protect one of the most prominent intangible assets for industry 4.0 and next-generation innovative businesses.

    Amid this European scenario, Italy maintained a privileged position vis-à-vis most of the other Member States, since provisions for specific protection of business know-how and confidential information had already been laid down under articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property. This is why Italian lawmakers intervened in articles 98 and 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property to merely replace the former language “business information and expertise” with the notion of “trade secrets”, while basically leaving the protections envisaged in article 98 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property unchanged to its earlier version, which was already in line with the EU rules.

    Apart from this, the legislative decree supplemented the applicable rules and improved the standards of protection of trade secrets, pursuant to EU Directive no. 2016/943, to enable judicial decisions in protection of trade secrets to be weighed against, inter alia, the significance of such information, its importance for the claimant, and the precautionary measures implemented by the owner thereof.

    In the first instance, paragraph 1-bis of article 99 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property has been introduced to take negligent behaviours into consideration on the matters of infringement of trade secrets, so that the acquisition, use, or disclosure of trade secrets may be held unlawful even when, at the time of the challenged circumstances, the individual was, or should have been, aware, as the case may be, that the trade secrets had been directly or indirectly obtained by the party that unlawfully used or disclosed them.

    Quite the reverse, article 9, paragraph I, of the Directive has been fully implemented in article 121-ter on the preservation of confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of legal proceedings, irrespective of these being for precautionary measures or on the merits of the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of such trade secrets. According to such new provision of law, any (ordinary, civil or criminal, administrative or accounting) court of law will be entitled to prevent the counterparties, their representatives and advisors, legal counsels, clerical staff, witnesses, any court-appointed or delegated experts, and any other persons having access to the decisions, briefs and documents included in the court file, from using or disclosing the trade secrets discussed in the proceedings that the court may classify as confidential. In addition, it is expressly provided that such a prohibition shall maintain full force and effect after the conclusion of the proceedings in which scope it was imposed, while vice versa its effectiveness will be forfeited (i) in the event that the lack of the requirements set out in article 98 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property in order to have a valid trade secret is assessed by ruling, or (ii) where the trade secrets fall in the public domain or become easily accessible to industry players and experts.

    Furthermore, in the same article specific measures were laid down for the preservation of confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of legal proceedings: hence, subject to compliance with the principles of fair trial, the judge will be entitled to adopt the most appropriate measures to preserve the confidentiality of the trade secrets discussed in the trial. Besides, the article explicitly sets forth two of the measures available to the judge: i.e., restricting access to hearings, briefs and documents included in the court file; and ordering the clerks to conceal the specific parts containing the trade secrets from the documents filed in the proceeding. However, because policymakers did not deem it appropriate to enable the judicial authorities to impose such prohibitions and measures by operation of law, they preferred leaving any request in this respect to the parties’ initiative, owed to the apparent high technical expertise required to appraise the confidential nature of such trade secrets.

    With a view to ensuring a more accurate and effective preservation of trade secrets, criteria have been laid down (in article 124, paragraph 6-bis, of the Italian Code of Industrial Property), which the Judge will be bound to uphold when establishing the remedies and civil sanctions – and assessing whether these are suitable – in the proceedings on the matters of unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets under article 98. For this purpose, the Court is required to take into consideration the material circumstances of the case at issue, among which:

    • the value and other specific features of the trade secrets;
    • the measures implemented by the legal holder to protect the trade secrets;
    • the actions carried out by the infringer to acquire, use or disclose the trade secrets;
    • the impact of the unlawful use or disclosure of the trade secrets;
    • the parties’ legitimate interest, and how this may be affected by the endorsement or rejection of the judge’s measures;
    • the legitimate interest of third parties;
    • the interests of the general public; and
    • the need to ensure protection of the fundamental rights.

    Not only will the Judge be bound to take these circumstances into consideration in the course of the proceedings on the merits, but also upon issuance of the precautionary measures sought by the trade secrets holder, and upon appraisal of their suitability, based on the explicit warning contained in new paragraph 5-ter of article 132 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property. Consequently, the Judge will issue a preliminary injunction or another interim measure only if the requesting company proved having adopted all the necessary measures and internal protocols to keep a given trade secret confidential.

    According to new paragraph 5-bis of article 132 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property all proceedings aimed at seeking protective measures for trade secrets, as an alternative to the application of the precautionary measures, the judge may authorise the defendant to continue to use the trade secrets, subject to providing an appropriate security for compensation of any damages suffered by their legitimate holder, in any event, without prejudice to the prohibition to disclose the trade secrets authorised for use.

    The precautionary measures adopted in protection of the trade secrets may be forfeited either for failure to commence the proceedings on the merits within the mandatory deadline (set out in article 132, paragraph 2, of the Italian Code of Industrial Property), or as a result of the claimant’s actions or omissions. Where the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of the trade secrets are subsequently found to be groundless, the claimant will be sentenced to repay the damages caused by the adopted measures.

    As a further novelty, Legislative Decree no. 63/2018 introduced a compensation, payable as an alternative to the application of the measures under article 124 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property, which may be granted upon the interested party’s application, provided that all of the following requirements laid down by new paragraph 6-ter of article 124 of the Italian Code of Industrial Property are met: at the time of the use or disclosure, the claimant was not, nor should have been, aware that the trade secrets had been obtained by the third party unlawfully using or disclosing them; the execution of these measures would be unduly burdensome for the claimant; the compensation is commensurate to the damages suffered by the party seeking the application of relieving measures and, in any event, it does not exceed the amount that would have been paid on account of royalties for the use of the trade secrets throughout the challenged period of time.

    A statute of limitations has been established in 5 (five) years for rights and actions connected with such misconducts.

    As a final provision, in line with the availability of progressive measures and enhanced accuracy and effectiveness of trade secrets protections, which are the EU Directive basic principles, a list of the items is provided which the judge ought to appraise to order the publication of his ruling, and to weigh the suitability of the claimed measures: the value of the trade secrets; the actions carried out by the infringer to acquire, use or disclose the trade secrets; the consequences of the use or disclosure of the trade secrets; the risk of the infringer carrying on with the unlawful use or disclosure of the trade secrets.

    Furthermore, to make the above appraisal the Judge shall also consider whether, based on the available information, a natural person may be identified as the actual infringer and, in the affirmative, whether the publication of such information is justified in the light of any potential damages that may be caused to the infringer’s private life and reputation.

    In conclusion, articles 388 (wilful failure to enforce a court decision) and 623 of the Italian Criminal Code (disclosure of trade or science secrets) have been amended to improve the criminal reliefs granted under the Italian legal system, so as to include breach of trade secrets, and the measures connected therewith, among the misconducts sanctioned under the above provisions.

    All that considered, a new approach in adopting internal rules and compliance’s procedures is required to companies and trade secrets owners in order to protect their confidential information and to safeguard their judicial protection and new language shall be adopted in drafting non-disclosure agreements: as a matter of fact NDAs were in the past very often merely copied and/or downloaded from the web without any juridical care and the due attention.

    On May 18, 2018, was published in the Federal Official Gazette a reform to the Industrial Property Law (“IPL”), which will become effective on August 10, 2018. Since some of the amendments are business relevant, we prepared the following note:

    Statement of Use. Titleholders of trademarks are obliged to file a statement of use, within the three months following the third year in which the registration was granted. If the titleholder does not file the statement, the registration shall elapse.

    Scope of the trademark protection. New elements can be protected with a trademark registration, including, among others:

    • Smell and sound marks. Distinctive smells and sounds can be protected with a trademark registration.
    • Holographic signs. Such signs can now be protected with a trademark registration.
    • Certification marks. These marks distinguish products and services, whose qualities or characteristics had been certified by the titleholder of the mark, e.g. components, manufacturing conditions, quality, etc.
    • Trade dress protection. The plurality of operative and image elements, e.g. the size, color, label, packaging, decoration and any other that when combined differentiates products and services in the market, can be protected as a trademark.

    Obstacles trademark registration. The obstacles for trademark registration are amended and supplemented. It its worth highlighting the incorporation of the bad faith filing as an obstacle for the registration. In this case, the registration is requested against the good practices, traditions and customs or if it aims to obtain an undue benefit or advantage affecting its rightful owner.

    Likewise, it is worth mentioning the acknowledgment that certain registration obstacles can be prevented by filing the written consent of the interested party, e.g. for the registration of similar trademarks to a confusing degree with respect to a prior registration which protects the same products or services.

    Opposition System. The parties will be allowed to file evidence and subsequently their final pleadings, without interrupting the term of the registration proceeding.

    Statute of limitation of annulment actions. The statute of limitation to apply for the annulment of a trademark due to prior use is extended (from 3 to 5 years).

    As per the amendments of the LPI, it is necessary to update is Regulations in order to set forth practical aspects of the new provisions. For more information, do not hesitate to contact me through Legalmondo.

    Con l’art. 15 della Legge 25 ottobre 2017, n. 163 (c.d. Legge di delegazione europea), il Governo italiano è stato incaricato di recepire la Direttiva (UE) 2016/943 del Parlamento Europeo e del Consiglio dell’8 giugno 2016 sulla protezione del know-how riservato e delle informazioni commerciali riservate (segreti commerciali) contro l’acquisizione, l’utilizzo e la divulgazione illeciti.

    Oltre al consueto adeguamento della normativa esistente, tra cui, in primis, al Codice della Proprietà intellettuale (c.p.i.), la legge delega impone al legislatore l’adozione di misure sanzionatorie penali e amministrative efficaci, proporzionate e dissuasive in caso di acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illecita del know-how e delle informazioni commerciali riservate, in modo da garantire l’efficace adempimento degli obblighi previsti dalla direttiva stessa.

    L’iter di approvazione della direttiva

    L’iter che ha condotto all’emanazione della direttiva è durato oltre cinque anni ed i segreti commerciali erano uno dei pochi settori, insieme ai modelli di utilità, in cui mancava un intervento europeo volto all’armonizzazione della relativa protezione. Pur non raggiungendo completamente il suo scopo – trattandosi di una direttiva, infatti, l’intervento legislativo dei singoli Stati potrà prevedere un livello di protezione differente – si tratta comunque di un passo in avanti notevole, soprattutto se rapportato all’art. 39 dell’accordo TRIPS. Nonostante il suddetto accordo internazionale, infatti, non tutti gli Stati avevano adottato definizioni nazionali dei segreti commerciali o dell’acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illeciti di un segreto commerciale e non vi era coerenza per quanto riguarda gli strumenti di tutela civili disponibili. Permaneva inoltre una disparità di trattamento per il terzo che aveva acquisito il segreto commerciale in buona fede ma veniva successivamente a conoscenza, al momento dell’utilizzo, che l’acquisizione faceva seguito ad una precedente acquisizione illecita da parte di un altro soggetto. In aggiunta a quanto sopra, le singole norme nazionali per il calcolo del risarcimento del danno non tengono sempre conto della natura immateriale dei segreti commerciali, rendendo difficile dimostrare il lucro cessante o l’ingiustificato arricchimento dell’autore della violazione.

    Nel variegato panorama internazionale, tuttavia, l’Italia parte da una posizione di vantaggio poiché buona parte delle disposizioni della direttiva sono state recepite nei vari provvedimenti che hanno portato all’emanazione del Codice della proprietà intellettuale (D. Lgs. 10 febbraio 2005, n. 30) della c.d. direttiva Enforcement (2005/48/CE) e della recentissima emanazione della legge sul Whistleblowing (L. 30 novembre 2017, n. 179). Ad oggi la disciplina sostanziale è contenuta negli artt. 98 e 99 del c.p.i. e, per ciò che concerne i rimendi e il processo, negli artt. 120 e seguenti del Codice stesso.

    In ogni caso, la presenza di una direttiva sulla materia ha il pregio di consentire, ai singoli giudici nazionali, il rinvio pregiudiziale ex art. 267 TFUE al fine di ottenere un intervento chiarificatore da parte della Corte di Giustizia ed invocare le relative pronunce delle Corti degli altri Stati come precedenti.

    La definizione di segreto industriale

    Venendo all’esame della direttiva, il primo capo concerne l’oggetto, l’ambito di applicazione e le definizioni. Tra queste ultime, la più importante è proprio quella che riguarda il segreto industriale definito come quelle informazioni che soddisfano tutti i seguenti requisiti:

    1. sono segrete nel senso che non sono, nel loro insieme o nella precisa configurazione e combinazione dei loro elementi, generalmente note o facilmente accessibili a persone che normalmente si occupano del tipo di informazioni in questione;
    2. hanno valore commerciale in quanto segrete;
    3. sono state sottoposte a misure ragionevoli, secondo le circostanze, da parte della persona al cui legittimo controllo sono soggette, a mantenerle segrete.

    Rispetto all’attuale disciplina italiana, si rileva la differenza terminologica tra “valore commerciale” e “valore economico” ma tra i considerando si evidenzia che non è il valore di scambio il parametro di riferimento quanto, piuttosto, il vantaggio concorrenziale che può essere anche solo potenziale.

    Emerge inoltre che la definizione di segreto commerciale non è tesa ad imporre restrizioni sull’oggetto da proteggere contro l’appropriazione illecita e, in ogni caso, ricomprende il know-how, le informazioni commerciali e le informazioni tecnologiche quando esiste un legittimo interesse a mantenere la riservatezza oppure una legittima aspettativa circa la tutela di tale riservatezza.

    Peraltro, dalla suddetta definizione vanno esclusi le informazioni trascurabili, l’esperienza e le competenze acquisite dai dipendenti nel normale svolgimento del loro lavoro, nonché le informazioni che sono generalmente note o facilmente accessibili alle persone all’interno delle cerchie che normalmente si occupano del tipo di informazioni in questione.

    Le attività lecite e illecite

    Il secondo Capo della direttiva distingue le circostanze in cui l’acquisizione, utilizzo e la divulgazione dei segreti commerciali può ritenersi lecito od illecito e vengono individuate delle ipotesi eccezionali in cui non si applicano le misure previste per la tutela del segreto commerciale.

    Tra le attività considerate lecite rientrano:

    1. a) la scoperta o la creazione indipendente;
    2. b) il c.d. reverse engineering, definito come osservazione, studio, smontaggio o prova di un prodotto o di un oggetto messo a disposizione del pubblico o lecitamente in possesso del soggetto che acquisisce le informazioni ed è libero da qualsiasi obbligo giuridicamente valido di imporre restrizioni all’acquisizione del segreto commerciale;
    3. c) esercizio del diritto all’informazione e alla consultazione da parte di lavoratori o rappresentanti dei lavoratori, in conformità del diritto e delle prassi sia dell’Unione Europea che delle singole nazioni;
    4. d) qualsiasi altra pratica che, secondo le circostanze, è conforme a leali pratiche commerciali.

    Sul punto, le indicazioni della direttiva sono sicuramente più dettagliate rispetto a quanto previsto dall’art. 99 c.p.i. il quale si limita ad escludere dalla tutela le informazioni acquisite in modo indipendente da un terzo.

    La medesima conclusione emerge dal raffronto tra la disciplina italiana e quella comunitaria in merito alle condotte illecite: la prima, infatti, si limita a sancire un generico divieto di acquisizione, rivelazione a terzi o utilizzo abusivo delle informazioni; viceversa, secondo la direttiva, l’acquisizione di un segreto commerciale senza il consenso del detentore è da considerarsi illecita qualora compiuta con l’accesso non autorizzato, l’appropriazione o la copia non autorizzata di documenti, oggetti, materiali, sostanze o file elettronici sottoposti al lecito controllo del detentore del segreto commerciale, che contengono il segreto commerciale o dai quali il segreto commerciale può essere desunto, oppure, con qualsiasi altra condotta che, secondo le circostanze, è considerata contraria a leali pratiche commerciali. L’utilizzo o la divulgazione, invece, saranno illeciti se posti in essere senza il consenso del detentore del segreto commerciale da una persona abbia acquisito il segreto commerciale illecitamente, se in violazione un accordo di riservatezza o qualsiasi altro obbligo di non divulgare il segreto commerciale oppure di un obbligo contrattuale o di altra natura che impone limiti all’utilizzo del segreto commerciale.

    Parimenti illecito sarà il caso in cui il soggetto che utilizzi il segreto sia a conoscenza che quest’ultimo era stato ottenuto direttamente o indirettamente da un terzo che a sua volta lo utilizzava o lo divulgava illecitamente.

    Da ultimo, anche la produzione, l’offerta, la commercializzazione l’importazione, l’esportazione o lo stoccaggio di merci costituenti violazione saranno illeciti.

    Tra le eccezioni viene compreso, invece, il fenomeno del whistleblowing ovverosia il caso in cui l’acquisizione, l’utilizzo o la divulgazione del segreto commerciale siano avvenuti al fine di rivelare una condotta scorretta, un’irregolarità o un’attività illegale allo scopo di proteggere l’interesse pubblico generale.

    Altre ipotesi riguardano la divulgazione dei lavoratori ai loro rappresentanti nell’ambito del legittimo esercizio delle funzioni di questi ultimi e la tutela di un legittimo interesse riconosciuto dal diritto dell’Unione o dal diritto nazionale.

    Anche l’esercizio dei diritti alla libertà di espressione e di informazione, ai sensi della Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione europea, costituisce un’eccezione. Peraltro, al di là dell’ampio respiro della disposizione, sarà difficile bilanciare, in concreto, gli interessi sopra richiamati con la legittima tutela del segreto stesso.

    Le misure per garantire la riservatezza dei segreti nei processi

    Nel dare atto, tra i considerando, che spesso il rischio di compromettere la riservatezza di un segreto commerciale nel corso di un procedimento giudiziario costituisce un deterrente, per il titolare, dall’instaurare procedimenti volti alla relativa tutela, la direttiva prevede, al Capo terzo, che gli Stati assicurino la segretezza delle informazioni attraverso l’adozione di misure che contemplino quanto meno la possibilità di:

    – restringere l’accesso a qualunque documento contenente un segreto commerciale;

    – limitare l’accesso alle udienze ad un numero limitato di persone;

    – rendere disponibili le decisioni giudiziarie in una versione non riservata, nella quale i punti contenenti segreti commerciali siano stati oscurati.

    Peraltro, quanto meno in Italia, le vigenti norme procedurali già garantiscono il rispetto delle misure sopra indicate.

    Inoltre, sia per quanto concerne i procedimenti cautelari che i giudizi di merito, la direttiva individua le misure che, su richiesta del detentore del segreto, le competenti autorità giudiziarie possano emanare nei confronti del presunto autore della violazione: si va dalla cessazione/divieto di utilizzo o divulgazione del segreto commerciale, passando per il divieto di produzione/ importazione/esportazione di merci costituenti violazione, sino al sequestro e distruzione delle merci costituenti la violazione.

    Tra le circostanze che, caso per caso, dovranno essere tenute in considerazione per l’ottenimento delle misure richieste, la direttiva enuncia: il valore o le altre caratteristiche specifiche del segreto commerciale, le misure adottate per proteggere il segreto commerciale, la condotta del convenuto nell’acquisire, utilizzare o divulgare il segreto commerciale,
l’impatto dell’utilizzo o della divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale,
i legittimi interessi delle parti e l’impatto che l’accoglimento o il rigetto delle misure potrebbe avere per le parti, i legittimi interessi di terzi, l’interesse pubblico e
la tutela dei diritti fondamentali. Le suddette misure, inoltre, potranno essere subordinate alla concessione di una cauzione adeguata.

    Il risarcimento del danno

    Oltre a quanto sopra, il provvedimento delinea gli elementi che debbono essere tenuti in considerazione per la determinazione del risarcimento del danno subìto. L’autorità giudiziaria dovrà valutare le conseguenze economiche negative, compreso il lucro cessante subìto dalla parte lesa, i profitti realizzati illecitamente dall’autore della violazione e, ove opportuno, elementi diversi dai fattori economici, quale ad esempio il pregiudizio morale causato al detentore del segreto commerciale dall’acquisizione, dall’utilizzo o dalla divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale. La norma prevede inoltre che, in alternativa a quanto sopra, il risarcimento possa essere determinato in via forfettaria, basandosi sull’importo che l’autore della violazione avrebbe dovuto corrispondere al titolare se gli avesse richiesto l’autorizzazione ad utilizzare il segreto stesso.

    Nel recepire la direttiva, gli Stati potranno inoltre limitare la responsabilità dei dipendenti in caso di danni causati involontariamente.

    Nel bilanciamento degli interessi convolti, la direttiva prevede anche il risarcimento dell’eventuale danno subìto da colui che è stato soggetto alle misure sopra richiamate nel caso in cui queste si estingano per fatto imputabile all’attore oppure se sia stato successivamente accertato che non vi sono stati acquisizione, utilizzo o divulgazione illeciti del segreto commerciale né la relativa minaccia.

    I rimedi proposti dalla direttiva andranno quindi ad integrarsi, quanto meno per quanto riguarda i segreti commerciali, con quanto già previsto dal codice sulla proprietà intellettuale italiano: il diritto di informazione, la discovery e l’ordine di ritiro dal commercio contro intermediari.

    La prescrizione

    Importante novità riguarda infine la prescrizione: in base alla direttiva, gli Stati dovranno disciplinare la decorrenza iniziale del termine, le cause di sospensione o interruzione dei diritti e delle azioni per chiedere l’applicazione delle misure di tutela previste. Tale durata, inoltre, non potrà superare i sei anni.

    A differenza di altri diritti di proprietà intellettuale, la protezione dei segreti commerciali non è limitata nel tempo – benché il valore di alcune informazioni possa senz’altro diminuire sensibilmente negli anni – come avviene, ad esempio, in caso di brevetto; a differenza di quest’ultimo, inoltre, non ci sono procedure ufficiali o costi diretti (quali tasse di registro o di rinnovo) per ottenere la protezione.

    Ciò non di meno, la tutela sarà ipotizzabile solo nel caso in cui i requisiti richiesti dalla definizione di segreto commerciale siano tutti presenti.

    A tal fine è fondamentale che le imprese valutino con cautela le misure di protezione interne, in modo da garantire la segretezza dell’informazione.

    Particolare attenzione richiederà la revisione dei contratti in essere, sia con i terzi che con i dipendenti, nonché l’aggiornamento delle procedure interne anche in relazione ai rischi che l’utilizzo degli odierni strumenti elettronici comportano, in modo da preservare livelli di protezione adeguati.

    L’autore di questo articolo è Giacomo Gori.

    The fourth Industrial Revolution, currently experienced by global economy, displays a melting-pot of a wide range of new technologies combined one another, impacting on every aspect of economy, industry and society by progressively blurring the borders of the physical, digital and biological spheres.

    The growth of robotics, of artificial and virtual intelligence, of connectivity among objects and of the latter with humans, is contributing to strengthening the virtual side of economy, made of its intangible assets. Even trade is tending more and more towards a trade of intellectual property rights rather than trade of physical objects.

    In such a scenario, protection of intellectual property is becoming increasingly important: the value of innovation embedded in any product is likely to increase as compared to the value of the physical object itself. In other words, protection of intellectual property could significantly affect economic growth and trade and shall necessarily go forward as the economy becomes more and more virtual.

    Future growth of the 4.0 economy depends on maintaining policies that, on one hand allow connectivity among millions of objects and, on the other, provide for strong patent protection mechanisms, thus, encouraging large and risky investments in technology innovation.

    Are SMEs, which represent the beating heart of the Italian economy, ready for all this? Has Italy adopted any policy aimed at boosting innovation and the relevant protection for SMEs?

    After more than four years since the launch of the Startup Act (Decree Law No 179 of 18 October 2012), Italian legislation confirms being among the most internationally advanced programs for innovative business support strategies. If we look at the Start Up Manifesto Policy Tracker Startup Manifesto Policy Tracker (a manifesto for entrepreneurship and innovation to power growth in the European Union), published in March 2016, Italy is in second place among the 28 EU Member States, in terms of the take up rate of recommendations made by the European Commission on the innovative entrepreneurship issue.

    The Annual Report to Parliament on the implementation of legislation in support of innovative startups and SMEs (Edition 2016) confirms the results of the Startup Manifesto Policy Tracker: Italian ecosystem has grown in terms of number of startups recorded (+41% on the previous year), of human resources involved (+47,5%), of average value of production (+33%) and, finally, of funding raising (+128%, considering access to credit via the SME Guarantee Fund).

    This growth is the outcome of both the inventiveness and the attention to innovation that have always characterized Italian entrepreneurs as well as of the progress made by Italian legislation over the past years: changes were introduced in order to boost the national system for business startups and, in some cases, to promote innovative entrepreneurship as a whole.

    Adopted measures include, for example: the implementing Ministerial decrees on tax credits for R&D investments; the ITA Service Card for innovative SMEs, the multimedia, bilingual online platform #ItalyFrontiers (the aim of which is to promote capital investment and encourage open innovation projects involving innovative Italian businesses); Italia Startup Visa and Italia Startup Hub (the renewal, under the 2016 Decree on Immigration Flows, of a preferential procedure for the granting of visas and the conversion of permits to stay for self-employed for non-EU citizens wanting to move to Italy or remain there to start up an innovative enterprise); the launch of a new simplified online company incorporation procedure that enables innovative startups to be opened as limited liability companies, granting significant time and cost reductions; the extension (until 2016) and the reinforcement of fiscal incentives available for investment in innovative startups; finally, the extension of the free, simplified access to the Guarantee Fund to include innovative SMEs in order to make it easier for them to obtain credit.

    The importance of Intellectual Property in the modern economy

    A national policy that has a target of incentivizing the use of Intellectual Property is a policy that will have beneficial effects on the entire national (and international) economy.

    Proof of this, are the results of the studies carried out by the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and the European Patent Office (EPO) on the contribution of intellectual property rights (IPR) on the EU economy.

    The study analyzed the effects of intellectual property on the EU in terms of gross domestic production, occupation, wages and trade. Here are some of the most interesting data:

    – 42% of the total economic activity in the EU (approximately EUR 5.7 trillion) and 38% of occupation (approximately 82 million workplaces) is attributable to IPR-intensive industries;

    – IPR-intensive industries pay significantly higher wages than other industries, with a wage premium of 46%;

    – IPR-intensive industries tend to be more resilient against the economic crisis;

    – IPR-intensive industries account for about 90% of EU trade with the rest of the world, generating a trade surplus for the EU of EUR 96 billion;

    – about 40% of large companies own IPRs.

    The data gathered by this study should raise social and political awareness as to the importance of stimulating not only large companies, SMEs and startups in general, but also those, which use intellectual property.

    The innovation criteria

    An interesting measure that is showing good results in relation to the dissemination of IPR companies in Italy is the introduction, thanks to the Startup Act, of the concept of innovative startup.

    The Startup Act provides facilitating measures (e.g.: incorporation and following statutory modifications by means of a standard model with digital signature, cuts to red tape and fees, flexible corporate management, extension of terms for covering losses, exemption from regulations on dummy companies, exemption from the duty to affix the compliance visa for compensation of VAT credit) applicable to companies which have, as well as other requirements, at least one of the following requirements:

    – at least 15% of the company’s expenses can be attributed to R&D activities;

    – at least 1/3 of the total workforce are PhD students, the holders of a PhD or researchers; or, alternatively, 2/3 of the total workforce must hold a Master’s degree;

    – the enterprise is the holder, depositary or licensee of a registered patent (industrial property), or the owner and author of a registered software.

    The Startup Act is still having positive effects on the startups demographic trends. As a matter of fact, during the first six months of 2016 there has been a growth rate of 15,5% in the number of registered companies.

    The success of the Startup Act brought the Italian legislator to extend with the Investment Compact (Decree Law No 3 of 24 January 2015)  most of the benefits provided for innovative startups also to innovative SMEs.

    By the Investment Compact the Italian Government recognized that innovative startups and innovative SMEs represent two sequential stages of the same continuous and coherent growth path. In a context as the Italian one, dominated by SMEs, it is fundamental to strengthen this kind of enterprises.

    The measures in question apply only to SMEs, as defined by the European Commission Recommendation 361/2003 (companies with less than 250 employees and with a total turnover that does not exceed € 43 million), which have, as well as other requirements, at least two of the following requirements:

    – at least 3% of either the company’s expenses or its turnover (the largest value is considered) can be attributed to R&D activities;

    – at least 1/5 of the total workforce are PhD students, PhD holders or researchers; alternatively, 1/3 of the total workforce must hold a Master’s degree;

    – the enterprise is the holder, depositary or licensee of a registered patent (industrial property) or the owner of a program for original registered computers.

    Unfortunately to this day the Investment Compact has not produced the expected results: on one hand, there is a problem connected to the not well-defined concept of “innovative SMEs”, differently from what happened with startups; on the other hand, there are structural shortcomings in the communication of government incentives: these communication issues are particularly significant if we consider that the policy on innovative SMEs is a series of self-selecting, non-automatic incentives.

    Patent Box

    Another important measure related to the IP exploitation is the Patent Box, the optional tax rule applicable to income derived from the exploitation of intellectual property rights.

    The Patent Box rules were introduced by the 2015 Stability Act and give to businesses, from 2015 onwards, the option of tax-exempting up to 50% of the income derived from the commercial exploitation of software protected by copyright, industrial patents for inventions, utility models and complementary protection certificates, designs, models, company information and technical/industrial know-how, provided that they can be protected as secret information according to the Italian Code of Industrial Property: meaning patented intangibles or assets that have been registered and are awaiting a patent.

    Originally, also the exploitation of trademarks allowed entrepreneurs to choose the Patent Box optional tax rule, but a very recent Decree  erased that provision by excluding trademarks from the Patent Box regime. This exclusion has just been introduced in order to align the Italian Patent Box to the prescriptions of the Organization for Economy Co-operation and Development (OECD).

    Said policy has a dual purpose: on one hand, it seeks to encourage Italian entrepreneurs to develop, protect and use intellectual property; on the other hand, it intends to make the Italian market more attractive for national and foreign long-term investment, while protecting the Italian tax base. The incentive encourages the placement, and preservation in Italy, of intangibles that are currently held abroad by Italian or foreign companies and also fosters investments in R&D.

    The Patent Box is certainly of great importance for Italian economy and has relevant merits, but it can be further improved. During the convention held on the 8th of May 2017 in Milan entitled “Fiscal levers for business development: the patent box example”, organized by Indicam, the institute for fight against counterfeiting established by Centromarca, it was highlighted that one aspect to improve is that of the Patent Box’s appeal to SMEs: there is a need for this policy, which was thought mainly for large companies, to be really effective. One solution, proposed by the Vice-Minister of Finance and Economy Luigi Casero, guest of the convention, is to «introduce some statistical clusters, a kind of sector studies, an intervention of analysis and evaluation of the fiscal indicators of a specific type of company».

    UPC

    The last matter that deserves to be mentioned is that of the Unified Patent Court: Italy has ratified the United Patent Court Agreement on the 10th of February 2017.

    As it is known, in order to start its operations the Unified Patent Court needs the ratification also of United Kingdom. Moreover, one of UPC central division should be located in London in addition to the ones in Paris, Munich. After Brexit this maintaining of the London Court appears inappropriate both under a juridical and an EU opportunistic point of view.

    As provided for the UPC Convention a section of the central division should be in Italy because it is the fourth EU member state (after France, Germany and the UK) as to the number of validated European patents in its territory: the London Court should be therefore relocated to Milan.

    Moreover Italy is one of the main countries in the EU applying for not only European patents but also trademarks and designs (and so contributes substantial fees) yet it does not host any European IP institutions.

    An Italian section of the UPC would certainly bring a higher awareness, also of smaller enterprises, in relation to the importance of IP protection.

    Conclusion

    A disruptive and unprecedented transformation is taking place, involving industry, economy and society, with its main whose main driver being the relentless ascent of its intangible component.

    What we have to do, as a society, is follow this transformation by changing our way of thinking and working, abandoning the old paradigms of the analogic era.

    Policy measures as the Startup Act, the Investment Compact and the Patent Box are surely important initial steps that are bringing certain positive effects, but they are not enough and they have not yet achieved the maximum results.

    As pointed out by the #StartupSurvey, the first national statistical survey of innovative startups, launched by the Italian National Institute of Statistics and the Ministry of Economic Development (the data were gathered by a mass mailing to all the innovative startups listed in the special section on 31 December 2015), the majority of Italian startups and SMEs (52,3%) have not adopted any formal mechanism, as the ownership of an industrial patent, to protect their innovation. Only 16,1% of the respondents owned a patent and only 11,8% owned a registered software.

    Among the reasons that bring startups to not adopt protection mechanisms, the majority of the entrepreneurs (48,4%) claimed to be convinced that the innovation of their enterprise could not be taken away by third parties. On the other hand, a considerable number (25,5%) said that they were not aware of the necessary strategies.

    The data gathered by the survey confirm that there is a communication and information issue, as noted in the paragraph above, to be solved.

    An interesting initiative relating to this problem is the new questionnaire realized by the Head Office for the fight against counterfeiting of the Ministry of Economic Development. This new and free service has been conceived, in particular, for startups and SMEs, allowing them to carry out an online self-assessment in relation to intellectual property.

    The aim of the questionnaire is to make the enterprises aware of their intellectual property range and to direct them towards the adoption of appropriate strategies for the valorization of their intangible assets.

    Poland has recently become quite famous for its skilled and resourceful IT specialists. Each year thousands of new computer engineers (programmers, developers, testers, designers etc.) enter into the market, warmly welcomed by domestic and multinational companies. A big part of these young talents open their own firm or business as free lancers developing software for clients from European countries as well as from US, Canada, Japan, China, etc.

    However, companies who want to cooperate with these partners and assign software development to a Polish IT company or freelancer should be aware that the copyright law in Poland is very strict, as it mainly protects the creator and not the client. Therefore, to be on a safe side, it is better to follow these 7 basic rules:

    1. Never start cooperation with an IT specialist or an IT company without a formal agreement. And I mean a real agreement, in a written form, with signatures of persons who can validly contract on behalf of the companies. The form is very important because – under Polish law – copyrights transfer and exclusive license agreements not fulfilling form conditions are null and void. Moreover, if there is no agreement, Polish copyright rules will apply to all intellectual property matters.
    2. Please remember that software is a creation protected by copyright law. Therefore you should consider whether you want to acquire the entire intellectual property rights or you just need a license. If you need a full IP transfer, you need to put it expressly in the agreement; otherwise you will only get a non-exclusive licence. And these, in several cases, will not be useful from a business point of view. If a license is enough, it is advisable to agree if it will be exclusive or non-exclusive.
    3. When drafting an IP clause, be detailed and clear. If you want to be able to decompile and disassembly the binary code, specify it in the IP clause. If you want to be able to introduce modifications to the source code, specify it in the IP clause. If you want to sublicense the software, specify it in the IP clause. The IP clause shall contain the description of any way you want to use the software, whether on mobile devices or on personal computers, any other electronic device or via internet (e.g. cloud computing). And believe me, when I write “specify it in the IP clause” it means that you really, really have to put it there. Otherwise it will be null and void and you may face a situation where your smart IT engineer, after getting paid, will sue you for the IP infringement.
    4. Remember that you should indicate the timeframe and the geographical scope of the license or IP transfer. If you do not specify it expressly in the agreement, you will only be entitled to a 5-year license, automatically expiring afterwards.
    5. Draft carefully a clause related to termination of the agreement. Under Polish law the licensor may terminate the license agreement granted for an indefinite period of time upon 1-year notice. If you do not want to find yourself in a situation where you lose the software IP rights in the middle of a big project, make sure that from the very beginning you are on a safe side.
    6. Make sure that your partner is obliged to transfer you upon request all software documentation and the source code.
    7. Make sure that you have a good indemnification clause with no limitation of liability. Often Polish IT companies subcontract some part of the development work to free lancers. You never know if they will conclude proper agreements with their subcontractors and if they will legally acquire the IP of the software that they will later sell you. There is always the risk that in the future some Polish IT engineer you never met will raise IP infringement claims against you, trying to prove that he/she actually developed the software. In such a situation an indemnification clause will help you recovering the costs from your partner.

    Talking to clients five years ago the trend was clear, application was to be filed for the EU Trademark only, as it was faster, broader, in relation to the geographical scope cheaper and easier to handle. However as we experience now the EU trade mark has some downsides for which reason it is advisable to apply for a national trademark alongside the EU trade mark. And these are the reasons why:

    Genuine Use

    One of the main risks with trade marks is the fact that they must be used five years after registration. That use however must be genuine. According to the ECJ (C 149/11) “there is ‘genuine use’ of a trade mark where the mark is used in accordance with its essential function, which is to guarantee the identity of the origin of the goods or services for which it is registered, in order to create or preserve an outlet for those goods or services; genuine use does not include token use for the sole purpose of preserving the rights conferred by the mark. When assessing whether use of the trade mark is genuine, regard must be had to all the facts and circumstances relevant to establishing whether there is real commercial exploitation of the mark in the course of trade, particularly the usages regarded as warranted in the economic sector concerned as a means of maintaining or creating market share for the goods or services protected by the mark, the nature of those goods or services, the characteristics of the market and the scale and frequency of use of the mark.“

    The problem which occurs from time to time is whether a trade mark used only in one member state or in a specific part of that member state is to be regarded as genuine use in the meaning of these ECJ findings. Whilst the ECJ (C 149/11) has not denied genuine use because of a territorial restricted use within one member state per se it still has not excluded that possibility and what is more has even given the national courts the decision making authority to assess “whether the mark in question is used in accordance with its essential function and for the purpose of creating or maintaining market share for the goods or services protected.“ Consequently a French court could decide that a use of a mark in Germany is insufficient for upholding a EU trade mark and thereby decide that the mark has to be deregistered. This reason alone provides for the necessity to have a national trade mark as plan B.

    Counterclaim

    When the plaintiff’s trade mark is a German trade mark, there is no possibility for the defendant to raise a counterclaim calling for a revocation of that plaintiff’s trade mark. The defendant has to file for an additional cancellation order before the German Patent and Trademark office. That additional cancellation proceeding however in general does not even bar the violation proceedings. So these will often be decided long before the cancellation proceedings in the last instance.

    That is different when it comes to the EU trade mark. The EU trade mark can be declared void during (!) the violation proceedings by filing a counterclaim. Alternatively, the EU trade mark court hearing a counterclaim for revocation or for a declaration of invalidity may stay the proceedings on application by the proprietor of the EU trade mark and after hearing the other parties and may request the defendant to submit an application for revocation or for a declaration of invalidity to the Office. With the consequences that the violation proceeding is dead for ten years which it takes to pursue the cancellation proceedings through all instances.

    Place of jurisdiction

    The place of jurisdiction of a EU trade mark is limited to the place where the event which gave rise to the harm occurred (“Handlungsort”). The German trade mark however also provides for the place where the harm arose (‘Erfolgsort’) as place of jurisdiction. That however gives the plaintiff much more possibility to forum shop.

    Statute of limitation

    The EU trade mark does not provide a uniform statute of limitation. The ECJ (C 479/12) has decided that claims for injunctive reliefs become time-bared under the regulations of the national law. However in some case it can be very unclear which national law applies and therefore the same case can be seen differently in the different countries. When the plaintiff’s trade mark is a national trade mark the scope of application of the national statutes of limitation is clear and there are no further insecurities which are never to relish when have court proceedings.

    The author of this post is Ilja Czernik.

    The eSports sector is growing rapidly as illustrated by the following figures:

    In 2017, the eSports economy grew to US-$696 million, a year-on-year growth of 41.3%.

    Brands invested $517 million in 2017, which is expected to double by 2020.

    Worldwide, the global eSports audience reached 385 million in 2017, with 191 million regular viewers.

    (cf. https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/global-esports-market-report-2017-light/)

    North America continues to be the largest eSports market with revenues of US-$257 million. There is also continual development of eSports in Germany, however. The professional soccer teams of VfL Wolfsburg and FC Schalke 04 have their own eSports teams (http://www.gameswirtschaft.de/sport/esports-fussball-bundesliga/), and the German eSports Federation Deutschland has recently been founded, with the Federal Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU) as a founding member (http://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/ESBD-E-Sport-Bund-Deutschland-geht-an-den-Start-162957).

    In areas where such a lot of money can be made, legal obstacles are never far away. Here, they comprise a wide range of all kinds of different topics.

    The initial focus is on copyrights and ancillary copyrights. Soccer stadiums, buildings, and avatars may enjoy copyright protection just as much as the computer program on which the games are based. Another item of discussion is whether eAthletes are to be classified as “performing artists” in accordance with Section 73 German Copyright Act. In addition, the question arises as to who enjoys ancillary copyrights under Section 81 Copyright Act as organizer of eSports events and whether such organizers have the same domiciliary rights as the organizers of a regular sports event.

    In terms of trademark and design law, it will have to be discussed to what extent products and brand images represent infringements of the Trademark Act and the Design Act. In the case of brands and trademarks in particular, the question will be to what extent they are design objects or indications of origin.
    Finally, there will also be regulatory issues that need to be observed. In addition to the use of cheatbots and doping substances, the main focus will be on the protection of minors and the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty with its advertising restrictions.
    In conclusion, one suggestion: keep an eye on the eSports movement! Companies that want to stay ahead of the curve, should deal with the aforementioned issues and all further questions in timely manner.

    The author of this post is Ilja Czernik.

    Joaquin Rodriguez

    Aree di attività

    • Diritto societario
    • Proprietà intellettuale
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