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On January 25, 2021, the Milan IP Court (decision No. 491/21) again granted copyright protection to the Moon Boot ® branded boots by Tecnica Group S.p.A., i.e., the famous après-ski boots in vogue since 1970.

According to the Milanese judges, the Moon Boot ® branded boots deserve copyright protection because they meet both the legal requirements of creative character (i.e., originality) and artistic value (i.e., an additional degree of originality deserving recognition by art critics and the art world, in general).

As a consequence, Tecnica Group is entitled to full copyright protection (in our case the author is still alive and under the rules in force, copyright shall subsist for the life of the author and 70 years thereafter), which, in practice, means Tecnica Group is entitled to obtain an injunction and damages against the reproduction and elaboration of Moon Boot® branded boots, as well as their distribution and advertising. The following are two examples of products which Italian courts found to be an infringement of Moon Boot ® branded boots:

This confirms that, despite some contrary opinion of some author, the recent decisions by the European Union Court of Justice on the so-called works of applied art (i.e., the Cofemel decision of 12 September 2019, C 683/17 and the Brompton decision of 11 June 2020, C 833/18) have not decisively affected the evaluation of Italian Courts when deciding whether to acknowledge the existence of a copyright on works of applied art.

We believe this is an option to consider. In the past, Italian Courts have acknowledged the existence of copyright on a number of non Italian designs, such Le Corbusier chaise longue or the Panton Chair by Vitra and now this could be your case:

Interpatent and Carlo Sala, Attorney at Law, who handled the case in court on behalf of Tecnica Group, are ready to respond to your queries. Please contact them at email@interpatent.com.