Italian Supreme Court rules that technical regulation (drafted by an IP lawyer) may be *in principle* protected by copyright
Lively drafting session ... Is an anticounterfeiting service regulation drafted by an IP lawyer protected by copyright? This, in a nutshell, is the question at the heart of the dispute initially brought by said IP lawyer against the organizers of a trade fair in the Venice area, who had allegedly copied the regulation that he had drafted. Last month, the Italian Supreme Court ruled (decision 10300/2020, Casucci v Unipol Assicurazioni S.p.A. and Others , also commented in Italian here ) that, in principle, a technical work like that one at hand could be eligible for copyright protection, subject to it being original. Background At first instance, the IP lawyer prevailed over the defendants. However, in 2016, the Venice Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the defendants/appellants, holding that it was not apparent where the originality – and, thus, protectability - of said regulation would lie, since the regulation at hand was found to...