I have found out by chance that one of my employees has registered the trademark, in Spain, of one of our products. We have never even thought of registering it in Italy, can we do something against him?

The regulation on trademarks, unlike the one on patents, does not control the registration of company marks by employees, as the mark is commercial to be used by a company and if this use does not happen within a certain period of time, whoever has registered it loses all the rights over it. In this […]

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After having registered a trademark for hotel services, I discovered by chance that the name was the same as that of a well-known magazine of a certain province. I would like to know if the owner of the heading of the magazine could bring an action against me.

The problem in this case refers to the relation between a sign registered as a trademark and others registered at a prior date. The law on copyright ex art n. 100, shields the name of a magazine, therefore nobody can use that same name for other editorial products until that name is used and for […]

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I should be importing a product in Italy bearing a famous Italian trademark. Since the manufacturing company of the mark is in italy, do I risk a lawsuit from it or is it legitimate my selling these products?

The trademark’s owner has the sole right to sell products indicated with a certain mark in the country where he has got the exclusivity. Therefore, if it is known that in Italy the right to a certain mark is of competence to a certain firm, only this latter can sell the specific products. However, there […]

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Can a trademark formed by two letters be protected?

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Can the name of a game to be played on Internet be registered as a trademark?

The progress of Internet and creation of new business related to it generates several problems to traders and legal representatives, forced to interpret, and adapting the regulations not born for the technological world of the computers. In fact, before introducing a trademark on Internet, it is prudent to do an international novelty search, ensuring nobody […]

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I am the president of an association and it is my intention producing a small journal to be distributed to the public. I would like to protect the name of it so that nobody could copy it. How can I do this?

The law automatically protects the name of a newspaper by the copyright, without the need of doing anything in particular, as the art. 100 provides that “the name of a newspaper, magazines or other periodical publications cannot be reproduced for other work of the same kind or character, unless two years have passed from the […]

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I am the owner of a firm producing chimneys. I would like to use the name of the town where I was born as a trademark for a new line. Can I do it or there are any particular reasons preventing this?

Registering the geographical origin as a trademark of a company is quite clearly prohibited by the art.13 of the Industrial Property Code. Such a prohibition though, is not entirely absolute, in the sense that it is possible registering a geographical name as a trademark that, in relation to the product or service for which the […]

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Could the name of a daily newspaper, which is not registered as a trademark, be used as the name of a magazine?

If the name of a heading is particularly well known, you could not at all proceed with registering it as a mark because of its prestige. However, even if this was not the case, registering the possible trademark would not shield you from any risks, and, above all, you would not automatically gain the right […]

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To obtain protection of a little slogan to be used in the whole of Europe, should a trademark be deposited for every language of every country, or could one application including them all be enough?

If the trademark is made up by words, at the time when we want to apply for registration, we need to indicate exactly the type of word or words we want protected. This question shows us two aspects of difficulty: the first related to the possibility of protecting in a country a phrase written in […]

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We are starting a business and we would like to know if it is possible registering, besides the name of the company, also a phrase that forms it? Furthermore, for the products, could we patent the line names?

Undoubtedly, when starting a business, the names choice strategically represents the most important moment, and it is even more important having the guarantee of being the only one using them. With reference to the first question, during the last years there have been more and more phrases being registered, besides words, which identify a product […]

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Having to protect my trademark in Germany, is it more convenient depositing directly in that country or applying for the International trademark?

This choice depends entirely upon the type of protection required and the current status of the trademark. Obviously the cost of the national trademark is less than the international one, and it enables, usually, to get the registration in less time. However, if there is an interest also in other countries, then the international trademark […]

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I want to register a trademark, but first I want to be sure not to have any problems with others who could have used it before me. What can I do?

Before registration it is a good rule to do a proper inquiry to ensure that no rights by other parties exist on the chosen name. For this type of search the data banks can be consulted, some are available to the public, some are more complex to be checked and must be paid. The first […]

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“Years ago, my father, owner of the firm “X”, registered a trademark. In 1993 the business closed down, even if lawfully it still exists. I would like to know if the trademark is still valid and what must I do to preserve the validity of it”.

To evaluate the trademark status, it is first of all essential to know the deposit date from which all rights in favour of the owner will be starting, and also the terms for the subsequent renewals. The maximum duration of a mark is 10 years, after which it can be renewed for a further period […]

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If I invent a new way to write the word “apple”, can I deposit the invention with a particular graphic and get payment from whoever uses it?

The Art. n. 7 of the Industrial Property Code states that “all new signs that can be graphically represented” can be object for a trademark, particularly words, drawings, letters, numbers, sounds, shape of a product or its packaging. Therefore, the particular graphic used to write a word, even if ordinary, is object not so much […]

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I would like to know if and how can a movie prize be protected?

The protection of a movie prize and above all its related prize-giving show, is entrusted to two different instruments. First of all, regarding the denomination of the prize-giving show, i.e. “The Cannes cinema festival”, “The Stand prize”, “Viareggio Carnival”, or other similar, the protection comes from the part dedicated to the trademarks of the Industrial […]

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Could a notorious trademark of someone else be used as a decorative feature of a t-shirt?

A trademark owner can prevent others using the same or similar for the same class of products or alike, but, normally, the use of that name is allowed for any other very different products. In our case, though, it is a different kind of problem, as we want to use a well renowned mark. The […]

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