INDUSTRIAL LAW
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2020/2021
- Teacher
- DAVIDE SARTI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- IUS/04
Training objectives
- Subject of the course is unfair competition law, trademark law and general law of distinctive signs. The course examines the law of registered EU and national trademarks. The course illustrates the other distinctive signs.
Principali conoscenze acquisite. Detailed knowledge of acts of confusion, detraction, appropriation of merits, general clause of honest practices. Knowledge of general principles concerning unfair trade practices, misleading and comparative advertising. Knowledge of requirements of EU and national trademark registration. Knowledge of rights conferred to registered trademark owners. Knowledge of other kinds of distinctive signs (unregistered trademarks, commercial names, banners, domain names and geographical indications). Knowledge of procedures and remedies to sue unfair practices and infringements.
Principali abilità. Attendants will take advantage of main EU and national leading cases, which will be illustrated during the course, to manage unfair competition litigations; trademark infringement litigations also in context of international and EU trade. Attendants will be able to submit claims to courts and administrative bodies and ask for proper judicial remedies. Prerequisites
- Skill in Italian language and grammar. Skill in logical reasoning in term of law and law correlation. Previous exam of Private law (Diritto privato) and Constitutional law (Diritto costituzionale) is needed. Knowledge of basics of contract law and tort law is required. Knowledge of basics of Commercial law (Diritto commerciale), concerning especially the notion of enterprise, is recommended. Knowledge of Civil procedure law (Diritto processuale civile) is useful.
Course programme
- I. Unfair competition (manual, pp. 3-146, 12 hrs. lessons). 1. Legal sources: international agreements and civil code. – 2. Competitors. – 3. Acts of confusion. - 4. Acts of detraction. - 5. Acts of appropriation of merits. - 6. General clause of honest practices. – 7. Unfair trade practices. – 8. Legal actions and remedies. - II. EU and national registered trademarks (manual, pp. 149-316, 20 hrs. lessons). 1. Sources: international agreements, EU directive, EU trademark regulation, Italian industrial property code. – 2. Trademarks: definition and function. Individual and collective trademarks. – 3. Registered and unregistered trademarks. Legitimate application for registration. – 4. International, European and national registration procedures. – 5. Requirements for registration. - 6. Rights conferred by a trade mark. Identity and similarity of products and signs. Likelihood of confusion. Unfair advantage or detriment to reputation. – 7. Prohibited uses and limitation of effects of trade marks. Exhaustion and international trade. – 8. Transfers and licenses of trade marks. - 9. Grounds for invalidity and revocation. – III. Unregistered signs (manual, pp. 317-355, 4 hrs. lessons) 1. Unregistered trademarks. – 2. Commercial name, banner, domain name. – IV. Collective signs (manual, pp. 297-300, 357-369, 2 hrs. lessons)) - 1. Collective trademarks. – 2. Geographical indications. - V. Procedures and remedies (manual, pp. 539-575, 2 hrs. lessons). 1. General rules of jurisdiction. – 2. Burden of proof. – 3. Judicial assignment. – 4. Invalidity and revocation procedures. – 5. Infringement procedures. – 6. Provisional measures. – 7. Remedies.
Didactic methods
- 40 hrs. Lectures. Lectures will try to make references to the most common practices of unfair competition and trademark use. All EU leading cases concerning registered trademarks will be illustrated.
Lectures will cover the entire program. The program does not make differences between attending and non-attending students. Attendance, combined with home study and confrontation with the textbook during the whole course, should make easier to achieve high evaluations. Learning assessment procedures
- Oral examination. 2-3 questions will be posed to attendants. The examination does not make differences between attending and non-attending students.
At least one question will concern general problems regarding requirements and rights conferred by registered trademarks. Order of exposition and proper language are needed to get a good evaluation (25 or more). Top evaluations (28-30) require problem solving skills in cases not directly handled in the manual. Reference texts
- Vanzetti – Di Cataldo, Manuale di diritto industriale, VIII ed., Giuffrè, Milano, 2018; pp. 1-363; 533-569 (§§ 5, 8, 18-19 are excluded)
