IPT Italy – Page 2

How do you spell e-Stadium?

By Vincenzo Giuffrè / 7 March 2019 24 June 2019 / Intellectual Property, Sport

The majority of legal analysis concerning the raise of e-Sports tends to coagulate around the main stakeholders, i.e. the IP owners, the broadcasters, the sponsors and the e-athletes and teams, focusing on the appropriate way to discipline their relationships, possibly against a regulated background capable of dealing with gambling, e-doping and, more generally, with the requirements and rules set by laws, sport authorities and similar bodies.

There is however a missing piece in this picture: the audience, i.e. the increasing crowd interested to see the e-games, possibly attending live events, with the opportunity to meet their idols and see them play live.

eSports between Italian prize promotion and gambling rules

By Giulio Coraggio / 27 February 2019 24 June 2019 / General

eSports tournaments can be subject to stringent restrictions under Italian prize promotion and gambling rules if adequate solutions are not adopted.

The eSports market is rapidly growing and the data below show a massive boost from 2012 up to now in 2019 $ 130 million to $ 1,187 million, with a further fast increase in the coming years.

Blockchain based smart contracts equal to written document in Italy

By Giulio Coraggio / 26 February 2019 24 June 2019 / General

The growth of usage of blockchain based smart contracts in Italy might be boosted by a new law which deemed them equal to written documents in some cases.

Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – The never-ending saga of cultural appropriation in fashion

By Chiara Perotti / 25 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Fashion, Intellectual Property, IP

Over the last years we have witnessed extensive disapproval of the fashion world when dealing with collections or campaigns inspired by different cultures. As a fact, criticism on alleged cases of cultural appropriation has been rising to the stars throughout the years and does not seem to come to an end.

Generally speaking, cultural appropriation is defined as the unrecognized or inappropriate adoption of traditions, practices, ideas, etc. of one culture by members of another cultural, usually the latter being more dominant.

Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends − New brand identity in the fashion industry: is the “sans-serification” the right move?

By Laura Gastaldi / 22 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Fashion, Intellectual Property, IP, Trademarks

In recent months many fashion companies have been restyling their brands by simplifying and minimizing their visual impact: big fashion industries are dropping unique fonts, words and design features − which until now have significantly contributed to differentiate their brands from their competitors’ − in favor of most popular and common fonts, such as sans-serif.

“Less is more”, we may say.

Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – Lil Miquela, Shudu, Bermuda and Sophia The Robot: CGI and Robot IT Girls Who Will Become the Influencers of the Future

By Deborah Paracchini / 21 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Advertising, Artificial Intelligence, Fashion, Intellectual Property

There is a new crop of influencersin town and – read carefully – they are not real people.

Virtual influencers – influencers who are not human, but rather are CGI creations or robots – are the latest trend on social media. CGI stands for “computer-generated imagery” and it is a technology that creates pictures through the use of computers, now applied to create the new trend of virtual – but realistic – Instagram influencers and models.

In particular, the top 4 leading the group are Miquela Sousa, Bermuda, Shudu and Sophia the Robot.

Use of excerpts of videogames and eSports competitions without the right holder’s consent: is it fair use (or the Princess is in another castle)?

By Elena Varese / 21 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Copyright, General, Intellectual Property, IP, Media & TLC

Publications sharing tips on how to complete videogames and maximise bonuses might increase with the expansion of the eSport competitions. The same applies to platforms streaming videogames alone or together with eSport actions of the various players. Yet are these activities possible without the right holders’ consent?

Under Italian law, videogames are protected as a whole as copyright works like movies, whilst their frames could be protected as simple photographies (with protection lasting 20 years from their publication). Following a different opinion, videogame frames could be excluded from protection, as they may considered similar to documents, as provided by Art. 87, last sentence of the Italian Copyright Law (ICL).

Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends: Sustainability and green claims

By Valentina Mazza / 20 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Advertising, Fashion, Intellectual Property, IP

After that last September Lady Gaga walked the Venice Film Festival red carpet in a pink feathered Valentino gown, next season will be all about feathers. But where do feathers come from? Are they compliant with sustainability claims and animal welfare regulations?

Since consumers are increasingly sensitive towards sustainability problems and the ecological and ethical qualities of a product can influence the purchasing choices of the average consumer, the last trend in fashion is using materials and manufacturing processes that respect the environment and local communities, along with animal welfare and working conditions. During last Milan Fashion Week, the whole fashion system met at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards launched in 2017 to celebrate the commitment of luxury fashion houses to sustainability. Ex Spice Girl, now fashion designer Victoria Beckham announced that she will stop use of exotic leathers from A/W 2019 collection of her fashion brand, already fur free. The global sportswear brand Adidas committed to using only recycled plastic by 2024. Just yesterday the French luxury group LVMH launched the first standard for responsible crocodile leather sourcing across three pilot farms.

Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends: Use and protection of fashion archives

By Elena Varese / 19 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Advertising, Copyright, Fashion, General, Intellectual Property, IP, Trademarks

The Milan Fashion Week has just started and from today we are glad to host some highlights on the major fashion law trends of this season.

Heritage is one of the major assets a fashion company holds and the ultimate tendency of this Fashion Week is to revamp old creations from the maison’s archives.

Firstly, it should be assessed whether the fashion company can use its own archives. This seems to be a plain question, however, in practice, it could happen that, despite being the owner of the physical copies of sketches and preparatory works of certain garments or motifs, the company does not hold the IP rights over such creations of the past.

New WIPO study on A.I. inventions and EDPB opinion on clinical trials

By Tommaso Ricci / 15 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Intellectual Property, Life Science

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has launched its first “Technology Trends” Study on developments in Artificial Intelligence inventions and the EDPB issued an opinion on processing of personal data on clinical trials.

eSports: a new frontier for the advertising law and image rights?

By Laura Gastaldi / 14 February 2019 24 June 2019 / Advertising, General, IP, Sport

eSports competitions have recently become a trend topic among sports and gaming lovers.

An ever-growing number of major sports leagues and pro young players are getting involved in this global competitive industry, together with an increasing turnover. By 2020, eSports is predicted to become a billion-dollar industry.

This explosive growth of digital sports championships captured the attention of many leading companies – operating in various lines of business – which are gradually approaching this new phenomenon by investing into eSports in the hope of targeting its relevant audience.

New programming and investment obligations for VOD and linear audio-visual media service providers!

By Laura Borelli / 6 February 2019 24 June 2019 / General, Intellectual Property, IP, Media & TLC, Telecoms, Video

On 25 January 2019, the Italian Communications Authority (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, hereinafter “AGCOM“) published the Resolution 595/18/CONS setting out the new Regulation on programming and investment obligations in favour of European works and works by independent producers (as amended by AGCOM Resolution 24/19/CONS) (hereinafter, “New Regulation“).

The New Regulation – which replaces the previous resolutions concerning the programming and investment quotas, including Resolution 66/09/CONS – was adopted on the basis of the Legislative Decree no. 204/2017, which amended the Consolidated Act on audio-visual media services and empowered AGCOM to set detailed rules applicable to linear and non-linear audio-visual media services providers, as well as to pay-per-view media services providers.

Italian DLA Piper Intellectual Property & Technology Predictions for 2019

By Giulio Coraggio / 1 February 2019 24 June 2019 / General

DLA Piper’s Italian Intellectual Property & Technology department has published their Legal Predictions for 2019. These take a look back at what happened during 2018 and illustrate the key changes that are expected in 2019.

As you have seen through the blog posts published during the previous weeks on this blog, the publication covers 14 different topics, from more traditional areas of law such as trademarks, copyright, trade secrets and patents to innovative topics such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, FinTech and eSports, from life sciences to media, fashion, e-cigarettes and gambling, to privacy and cyber security, which were among the main challenges of 2018 and will continue to be so in 2019.