Practice Area

The Law Firm offers its national and international clients legal trial aid and legal advice in the fields of Information Technology Law, intellectual property, privacy, e-commerce, on-line commercial communications and all that concerns business and information technology contracts.

The Law Firm provides assistance in its specific fields of activity during trials, as well as in case of Alternative Dispute Resolution, before the Authorities in charge and the self-regulation bodies.

Intellectual property

At any level of the Information Technology and the Information Society, there are important aspects connected with the intellectual property discipline.

The Law Firm supports the Client in detecting the most effective means of managing IP Rights, the know-how and the industrial secrets related to assets with a high technological and innovative value, also through contractual forms specially developed for the needs and purposes of the Client, and assists her/him/it in the choice and the implementation of the technological measures necessary to protect and identify protected contents.

The assistance and the advice in the field of Intellectual Property Law are aimed at the drawing up of contracts, licenses and agreements whose subjects are the development, production, trade and use of intellectual works (editorial, photographic, musical and audiovisual, cinema, television and animation as well as design works), with a particular focus on the IT field and on the phenomena that most characterize Web 2.0 (software, apps, database and data banks, multimedia, videogames, UGC - user generated content and contents spread though blogs, chats and in social networks, e-books, electronic publishing and on-line publishing, data mining).

The in-depth knowledge of the topics of intellectual property in the IT field is the prerequisite for an effective assistance to the Client during a legal dispute.


Privacy

The protection of personal data is one of the spheres most affected by technological evolution: the processing of personal data requires more and more dealing with many and peculiar questions of legal and technical nature.
The counsel and advice rendered by the Law Firm in the subject of privacy cover the different legal requirements connected with the processing of personal data and the effects of the processing itself.

The Law Firm helps the Client in determining the most convenient strategy to be chosen for its data processing (also in highly complicated sectors and projects at international level and in the field of IT), as well as in the precise fulfilment of the obligations provided for by the European (GDPR), Italian and EU members privacy regulations in force (census and records of processing activities, Gap Analysis, definition of the privacy policies, preparation of the consent to the processing of personal data, designation of the persons in charge of the processing and data processors, joint-controllers agreements, designation of representatives of controllers or processors not established in the EU, designation of the systems administrators, definition of in-house regulations concerning working relations, the use of computerized tools and e-mail, risk analysis, determination and control of security measures, transfers of personal data outside the EU/EEA).

Thanks to the experience and the competence accrued, the Law Firm can assist Clients also in the processing of personal data with peculiar characteristics or carried out through the most modern information and computerized technologies (collection and communication via web, transfer of data abroad, geolocalization systems, use of cookies, profiling, marketing by social networks, Rfid, Cloud Computing, video surveillance, processing of sensitive and genetic data), besides for the necessary training of the (managerial and operational) staff of the Client involved in the processing of data.

The Law Firm provides Data Protection Officer - DPO services for its Clients.

During a legal dispute the Law Firm provides assistance and defense in the subject of privacy before the Italian Courts and the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali).

E-commerce

Carrying out e-commerce activities involves dealing with the topics of screen-based contracts drawn up via web with customers and suppliers, management of the relations with the consumers, of files and electronic signatures.

Taking into account the specificity of the individual Client, the Law Firm provides legal counsel during the planning, realization and control phases of e-commerce and marketplace activities, in order to find and to implement the best procedures to establish a screen-based agreement and to manage the relationships with customers and suppliers, in line with the provisions of the law in force also in the field of data processing document and electronic signatures.

Consulting services to the Client aim at managing– also internationally – the relationships with customers, suppliers and consumers, at determining the contractual clauses regulating electronic and distance commerce of goods and services, B-to-B (business-to-business) and B-to-C (business-to-consumer), and at preparing legal documents related to the drawing-up of on-line contracts (i.e. documents related to website legal compulsory information, communications on recapitulation and confirmation of order, information on the right of withdrawal and withdrawal communication procedures).

The Law Firm provides assistance on the important subjects of the responsibility of entrepreneurs for services rendered on-line and of Internet Service Providers.

The defense of the Client on the occasion of a dispute, based on the knowledge of the various complicated aspects intersecting in the framework of e-commerce, is carried on both in the alternative dispute resolution procedures provided for in the field of e-commerce and before the Courts.


On-line commercial communication

When running advertising campaigns based on the innovative technological media of the Information Society, one has to consider the regulations in force to protect the receivers of services and promotional messages.
In the field of on-line commercial communications, the Law Firm offers consulting services to make a thorough review of the advertising campaigns, with particular focus on those aspects that are most related to the use of media in the IT framework.

The Law Firm helps the Client in evaluating the interference of the paid placement service offered by the main search engines (keywords advertising) with the IP rights of the competitors and of on-line behavioral advertising based on user profiling tools (such as cookies), with the discipline of personal data processing, as well as in the field of misleading and comparative advertising and unfair trade practices.

The activities carried out by the Law Firm include assistance to the Client in the drawing-up of contracts for the production and circulation of on-line commercial communications, with a particular focus both on IP rights and image usage rights management and on the distinctive features of the different forms and modes of on-line advertising (among which advergame or in-game advertising).

Consulting services extend to on-line promotional activities like contests with prizes, games, polls and collection of points aimed at winning prizes, gifts, free samples or discount tickets, as well as to any other means of involving and fidelizing consumers (gamification).

The subjects of misleading and comparative advertising, unfair trade practices, exclusive rights violation and unfair competition are the center of attention when assisting Clients in case of disputes before the Courts in charge, independent Authorities (Antitrust, AGCOM - Authority in Communications Guarantees and Privacy Protection Authority) and the Advertising self-discipline Jury.


Information technology contracts

Information technology contracts are characterized by the subject that the contract itself is meant to regulate, namely an “IT asset”. The drawing up of information technology contracts needs juridical expertise and computer science knowledge: without the former it is not possible to anticipate the real effects of the contract, whereas without the latter the agreement is doomed to be useless for the same parties who wanted it.

In order to propose a deed suited to establish, regulate or extinguish a relation whose object is an IT asset, it is fundamental to know the features of the asset to be regulated and to develop, around it and for it, the contract format most suitable for the needs and purposes of the Client.

For these reasons, the advice offered by the Law Firm in the field of IT contracts aims at finding together with the Client the contract forms most suitable for the interests and targets of the Client himself, ranging from contracts concerning the sale of rights on IT assets (cession of rights on software, database, multimedia), to licenses on software (use licenses, marketing licenses, creative commons licenses, open source licenses), to contracts for the supply of SaaS software systems (Software as a Service), to contracts on commission of software development and contracts for the supply of related services (ASP – Application Service Provisioning – contracts), to the newest forms of contracts to access on-line databases, Escrow contracts, service contracts in Cloud Computing, to the forms of contracts more closely linked to Web 2.0 (contracts for the development of websites, Link Agreements, Hosting and Housing contracts), together with contracts for the supply of information equipment and systems, and outsourcing of information systems.

The in-depth knowledge of the contract models in use in the IT field allows the Law Firm to assist Clients in the disputes concerning development, production, marketing or use of IT goods and services.