Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

[JURE SUMMARY](#SM)

## JURE SUMMARY

The Cour d'appel of Dijon (FR) found a manager of an Italian company guilty of unauthorised use of industrial property. It ordered the manager together with the Italian company to pay a specified sum of money to a well known French car manufacturer as compensation of damages arising from the unauthorised production and sale of car body parts of a specific model of car produced by the French manufacturer. The Italian parties lodged an appeal against the Italian declaration of enforceability of the French judgment. They claimed that the French judgment was in breach of Italian economic public policy, thus preventing its enforcement.
The Corte d'appello of Turin (IT) holds that the French judgment was issued on the basis of industrial property rights provided for in French law which do not exist in Italian law. This industrial property right awards legal significance to the design of a car which extends beyond the entire design of the car to individual body parts. This intellectual property right over individual parts which together form the body of a car has the result that economic operators from other EU States in which such a right does not exist are prohibited in that State from the production and sales of such parts as well as their transit, import or export. The court discusses the extent of public policy, holding that European public policy also encompasses certain fundamental principles of EU law. The court thus stays the proceedings and refers the question to the ECJ whether a judgment given in a Contracting State on the basis of this industrial property right breaches public policy in terms of Article 27 (1) Brussels Convention with the result that it may not be recognised in other Contracting States.

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