ITALY - DEVELOPMENT BILL: criminal law innovations related to intellectual property

With the final endorsement of July 9, 2009, Senate has given the go-ahead to a bill aimed to sustain development. Once come into force, the bill will entail some significant changes to the Criminal Code and to the Industrial Property Code. From a criminal standpoint, some of the most significant innovations consist in: - increasing of sanction strictness; - introduction, in Art. 473 CP, of the clause “whoever, being aware of the existence of the industrial property right, counterfeits…”; - introduction of the relevant aggravation of “orderly” and “organized” counterfeit; - extenuating circumstance for people who cooperate with authorities in inquiries; - administrative seizure in any case of counterfeit.


07/27/2009 | Legal