Satispay vs. Sisal Pay: copyright and parasitic competition

The Court of Milan was called to rule on the legal protection of software programs. In particular, the company that owns “Satispay” acted against “Bill Sisal Pay”, claiming the violation of its rights relating to its software, which the other party had allegedly copied. In addition, the applicant claimed that the adversary software, its database and user experience had been unduly replicated. The Court therefore granted the requested urgency protection, not on the basis of copyright infringement, but because of parasitic competition.

Revocation for non-use of the trademark: the new burden of proof

Among the most significant innovations introduced by Italian Legislative Decree no. 15 of February 20, 2019, is the distribution of the burden of proof with reference to the revocation of the trademark for non-use pursuant to Article 121 of the Italian IP Code.
According to the previous regulations, those who challenged the title were allowed to provide proof of non-use by any means, including simple presumptions. The reform, on the contrary, places the burden of proving the use on the trademark owner.

The new “Historic trademark of national interest”

It has been published the Italian Decree of the Minister of Economic Development on “Regulations for registration in the special register of historic trademarks of national interest and identification of the historic trademark of national interest”, in implementation of art. 31, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of the so-called Growth Decree (Italian Decree no. 34 of April 30, 2019). This regulation included in the Italian IP Code articles 11-ter, 185-bis and 185-ter, containing the notion and the basic rules of this new type of trademark.

EUIPO measures on Coronavirus

In order to provide users with further information on the decision of the Executive Director of the EUIPO published in recent days, which extends all deadlines until May 1, 2020, the Office of the European Union has issued further clarifications on the terms of the extension, its nature and the measures to adapt the communications sent to users.