LA TUTELA DELLA FORMA DEI PRODOTTI: PROFILI COMPARATISTICI

The protection of the shape of industrial products raises a number of issues deriving fron the overlapping of the design, copyright, trademark and unfair competition rights. The coordination of such rights is complex and leads to uncertain results pursuant to the different interpretation of the conditions of protections provided by the law for each right. The effect of such overlapping of rights on competition jeopardises the small and medium enterprises acting in the market of industrial design products. A possible solution may be based on the principles of the need to keep free and on art. 99 of the Italian copyright law.