Ahead, but carefully

Stefano Sandri

Sponsored by OHIM and CSM (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura), collaborating UIBM (Ufficio Italiano Marchi e Brevetti), the judges of the Italians Community’s courts met in Venice on 21-22 March 2007 to discuss the Community Trade Mark and Design. In spite of some communication and logistic problems in planning the seminar, the venue raised a large interest on part of the judges who gathered in Venice from the four corner of Italy. As a matter of fact, more than 50 judges, in representation of the 12 Community courts set up in Italy under the name ‘Sezioni Specializzate’, attended the seminar which was devoted the first day to an illustration of OHIM’s experience on CTM and CD system. On the following day, after a report on non-conventional trade-marks and the presentation of the TADOR website, six judges were involved in discussing the cases submitted to their court on the subject issues and other six were engaged in the mock trial prepared by OHIM, having taking very active partecipation, and amusement. The seminar was directed by Stefano Sandri, Special Advisor to OHIM, and Marina Tavassi, Court of Cassation, and all the reports delivered at the conference are at disposal in the OHIM relevant website. From the debate it was apparent that the Community Courts are in Italy progressively moving towards the Community Trade mark and design law. At the present time there are not yet so many pending cases on the matter in question and more attention is given to the procedural aspect than to the substantial law. The impact of the harmonization process, however, is clearly under perception and the seminar has met certainly the expectations of the attendant people for more information and up to dating on the new course of the Industrial Property law in Europe.