Legal advice

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Legal advice regarding the protection and enhancement of Intellectual Property rights (trademarks, patents, designs, domain names, copyright) is a necessary part of every company's development.

Therefore, in order to avoid legal disputes for acts of counterfeiting and the violation of rights, it's best to rely on lawyers and consultants who are competent in the matter, who help companies preventively protect themselves.

What is legal advice?

The provision of legal advice focuses on adopting strategic instruments to protect IP rights and counter any acts of unfair competition.

Every invention and all intellectual property must be protected throughout a procedural process, from the idea to its implementation and finally its distribution and use.

Therefore, after a careful examination of each of the company's IP assets (type, economic context, application, risks and opportunities) we can suggest the best legal strategy to rely on in order to protect the relative company assets.

Preventive legal advice

It is therefore essential that an entrepreneur chooses legal advice early for his company, to support every phase of the business process, including that related to the choice and launch of an IP asset.
In fact, the formulation of a legal opinion customised on a case-by-case basis is an added value in the medium and long term to prevent legal issues and disputes:

  • From the management of the procedure for registering trademarks or filing patents (registration and patentability opinions);

  • To the negotiation and drafting of related agreements governing their use (user license agreements, agreements for the transfer of trademarks or patents, licensing agreements and the transfer of software);

But what happens if you fail to get legal advice preventively, or perhaps in spite of this, disputes develop among the different actors in the field?
Then you find yourself handling a legal dispute.

Legal disputes

In a timely manner, we first begin with an out-of-court phase. If necessary, this is followed by an in-court phase.
In both phases, the Intellectual Property consultant (Agent) has a central role in both administrative litigation (for example, with to Freedom Operate opinions, letters of formal notice), and in court as a court-appointed consultant who can represent a company in the following offices:

Out-of-court litigation

This phase begins with a letter of formal notice from the injured party to the counterparty in order to seek an amicable settlement of the dispute without resorting to court.
This includes carrying out some checks on:

  • The validity of the IP right declared and the implications of an infringement of the relative rights;

  • Costs and benefits of possible litigation;

  • Economic strength of the counterparty;

  • Any extension of the dispute to other countries and IP rights;

  • Risk of possible prosecution;

  • Risks deriving from any compensation for damages in the event of legal action;

  • Economic, reputation and image damage for the company;

  • Recourse to emergency and precautionary measures to ensure the situation does not repeat itself.

In-court litigation and jurisdiction

If the dispute must be settled in court, the litigation on IP rights must take into account, in addition to the costs and resolution times, the problems of territoriality and jurisdiction (Article 120 of the Italian Intellectual Property Code).

In order to determine this, the judge must therefore also consider the criteria set: