2023 and intellectual property: a year of legislative and jurisprudential innovations that see Italy always poised between strengthening protection tools, favoring innovation, new uncertainties and steps backwards on the road to progress.
In many ways, 2023 has been a year of great change for intellectual property protection in Italy. There was not only the entry into force of the UPC, with the designation of Milan to replace London as the third seat of the Central Division (albeit with illegitimately reduced competences: which risks creating potential disputes and, in any case, offers the possibility of forum shopping) starting from June 2024 and with the first positive experiences of the Milan Local Division of the UPC (which is among the most active, after the German ones). In fact, in addition to these fundamental results, there has been both a limited but significant reform of the Industrial Property Code, and some important decisions that have consolidated the reputation of our Specialized Sections as reference Judges at European level for the innovative solutions they have given to disputes in the sector.
Unfortunately, however, there was still a lack of an intervention hoped for by many parties and that seemed to be included in the government bill on the protection of Made in Italy currently under discussion in Parliament: the legislator has not yet solved the knot of the specialization of the Magistrates who are entrusted with the litigation in the field of intellectual property, extending it also to criminal matters, concentrating it in a few places (so that Judges have the critical mass of cases that allow them to acquire significant experience, which is currently possible only in a few places) and, above all, overcoming the ten-year limit of permanence in the Specialized Sections, which disperses a precious heritage of skills and experience.
