Brand protection online. Site seized for unauthorized sale.

Be careful not to violate industrial property rights, such as trademarks and patents, on the Internet, because you may find yourself there site seized.

This is the solution adopted by the Court of Bologna, at the request of a historic ice cream maker brand, which had refused to authorize the sale of its products to the owner of a website.

The Court felsìneo refers in this regard to a ruling by the United Sections of the Court of Cassation of 29 January 2015, in order to justify the blackout of the site.

The reconstruction of the facts, according to the Judge, is based on the complaint filed by the injured party's administrative manager and the attached documentation, which adequately demonstrate the use of the registered trademark by the company without the owner's consent, thus inducing unsuspecting customers to purchase goods online at below-market prices, believing that the website was linked to the trademark owner, when in fact this was not the case.

Again according to the Judge "In this case, the congruity of the elements represented is evident in considering the accusatory hypothesis to be founded, at least in abstract, even if it seems more properly to be classified within the ambit of the”Article 517 ter of the Criminal Code, which punishes the sale of industrial products with false markings, more than that provided for by Articles 473 and 474 of the Criminal Code.

According to the Court, "For the purposes of integrating the crimes referred to in art. 473 (   Counterfeiting, alteration or use of trademarks or distinctive signs or of patents, models and designsi) and 474 of the Criminal Code (  Introduction into the country and trade of products with false markings) established to protect the legal interest of public trust, requires the material counterfeiting or alteration of another's trademark or distinctive sign that is such as to cause confusion among consumers and harm general trust, unlike the crime provided for by art. 517 of the Criminal Code, which exclusively protects the assets of the owner of the industrial property, which applies both in the case of products made in imitation of those bearing another's trademark, and in the case of the manufacture, use, and sale of "original" products by someone who is not the owner.

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