By Law no. 102/2023, which entered into force on 23 August 2023, the Italian IP Code was amended to strengthen the protection of IP rights and to simplify the procedural aspects of registering and enforcing those rights.
As to patents, the most relevant changes are the following:
Coexistence between national and European/Unitary Patent (Article 59 IP Code)
The previous rule provided that an Italian patent became ineffective in the case of grant of a European patent for the same invention filed by the same inventor with the same filing or priority date.
The new Article 59 provides for the possible co-existence of an Italian Patent and European/Unitary Patent.
This change is very important because it allows the patentee to enforce the national patent before the Italian Court and/or the European/Unitary Patent before the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”). Read more