Plastic design vs. luxury jewelry: copyright infringement confirmed but registered design and shape-trademark counterfeiting limited

The ruling of the Specialized Business Section of the Court of Bologna (R.G. 10791/2023, Chamber Order of 17 December 2025, Presiding Judge Guernelli, Reporting Judge Dioguardi) offers an important opportunity to reflect on the protection of design in the jewelry sector. In this field, the shape of the product often constitutes the primary factor of competitive differentiation, and the various intellectual property protection mechanisms - registered designs, copyright, shape trademarks, and unfair competition - inevitably tend to overlap.

This article was originally written by the Intellectual Property Observatory team, to which we refer for the whole text.

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