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Art. 22 of Legislative Decree no. 95 of 2001, implementing Directive no. 98/71/EC on the legal protection of designs, amended art. 2, par. 1, of the Italian Copyright Law (Law no. 633 of 22nd April 1941), by introducing a new category of works to be protected, namely “industrial design products having per se a creative and artistic quality”.

With Judgment of 22nd November 2012, the Venice Appeal Court stated that industrial design mass products are not characterized by artistic features and therefore cannot be protected under the Copyright Law. According to the Court, such products may not be considered as an expression of a special inspiration and of a highly individual style of their authors, in that those products are reproduced on a large scale for years and have no true value in the art market.

Instead, with Judgment no. 7477 of last 23rd March, the Court of Cassation has explained that the protection accorded by the Copyright Law may extend to industrial design products which are reproduced on a large scale.

Indeed, according to the Court of Cassation, the mass production of an item does not exclude the artistic quality of that item and so it may be protected by law. The artistic quality of a product is then to be ascertained by taking into account other objective elements, such as the conferment of prizes, the mention in specialist publications, a market value so high as to go beyond its functionality.