Italy jurisdiction report: Protection of trade secrets
In order to apply the regulations on unfair competition, it is necessary that there is a relationship of competition between the parties (author and victim of unfair competition) and that both parties may be qualified as entrepreneurs .
The above-mentioned situation changed. With the explicit inclusion of trade secrets in the category of IP rights, under articles 98 and 99 of ICIP, any acquisition, disclosure and use of the secrets without the authorisation of the owner has been considered unlawful. The owner may use numerous protection measures belonging either to the main proceedings (eg, destruction, assignment in property, etc) or to the precautionary proceedings (eg, description, injunction, withdrawal from the market, etc).
The Italian law on trade secrets was already one of the most efficient in Europe even before the introduction of the Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 8, 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (Directive)—which was transposed in Italy through the Legislative Decree No. 63 of May 11, 2018 (Legislative Decree).
