Industrial and intellectual property rights (IPRs) are regulated in Italy by the general principles laid down in the Italian Civil Code and in Legislative Decree No. 30 of 10 February 2005, as amended (the IP Code), and, in relation specifically to copyright, by Law No. 633 of 22 April 1941 (the Italian Copyright Law or ICL).
The use and validity of Italian IPRs is governed by national law. The use of Italian IPRs is, however, always subject to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and in particular its Articles 101 (regulating anticompetitive agreements between undertakings) and 102 (regulating abuse of market power by a single undertaking).
In Italy, the equivalent national competition rules are contained in Law No. 287 of 10 October 1990, setting out rules for the protection of competition and the market (the Italian Antitrust Law or IAL). That legislation covers agreements, abuses of dominant position and concentrations, but does not explicitly regulate the interplay between IPRs and competition law.
Article 101 TFEU (and the equivalent Italian legislative provision) may affect the terms under which IPRs are licensed (by acting, for example, to prohibit certain anticompetitive restrictions), unless those terms come under one of the exemptions for which Article 101(3) provides. Article 102 (and the equivalent Italian legislative provision) may also be applied against a holder of an IPR who refuses to grant a licence, charges unfair prices, or imposes anticompetitive terms, but only where they occupy a dominant position in the relevant market. In certain circumstances, the mere fact of holding IPRs may per se amount to a dominant position.
Intellectual property law and competition law ultimately share a common goal of promoting economic growth, innovation and consumers' welfare. The general consensus is, however, that their relationship is destined to remain highly conflictual notwithstanding that common objective. The fundamental reason for that conflict historically arises out of the way that the law of intellectual property in essence establishes ius excludendi alios.2 Competition law, by contrast, presupposes that a resource should be shared, as a means of favouring free competition.
This does not, however, represent an irreconcilable conflict, and in Italy – as in most countries – there are many reasons for saying that IP law now operates in favour of competition.
Italy has a system for bringing trademark opposition proceedings in an administrative process, in a similar way to the system for opposing Community trademarks. That procedure has been in place since July 2011, following publication of a Ministerial Decree of 11 May 2011 and an accompanying explanatory Circular, No. 582. Under the procedure, holders of earlier rights that conflict with third-party holders of an earlier registration may oppose an application for registration through an administrative route, by filing with the Italian Patents and Trademarks Office. This system represents a credible and effective alternative to the ordinary court-based procedure, and delivers results much more quickly and at considerably lower cost, while still leaving it open to litigants to seek to have the courts declare a trademark void.
In relation to patents, applications made on or after 1 July 2008 have been able to include a novelty search conducted by the European Patent Office on behalf of the Italian Patents and Trademarks Office, with the search results provided to the applicant. Historically, domestic patents were too weak and failed to confer much credibility upon an invention, not least when they were the subject of court proceedings, and that lent itself to abuses by patent holders.
There are many circumstances in which use may be made in Italy of IPRs under exemptions. For example, Article 241 of the IP Code, entitled 'Exclusive rights over components of a complex product', states that 'exclusive rights over components of a complex product cannot be enforced to impede the manufacture or sale of those components for the repair of the complex product, so as to restore its original appearance.' Accordingly, components of a complex product (such as a motor car), while protected by IPRs, may nonetheless be reproduced without the consent of the holder of those rights, where the reproduction enables restoration of the complex product's original appearance.
Incentivising innovation and the award of exclusive rights impose a duty to carry through and use the rights. This is the sense of the rules whereby a trademark may be revoked for non-use (under Articles 24 and 26 of the IP Code), and also the system for the grant of mandatory patent licences where patents remain unexploited (Article 70 of the IP Code). IPRs should never prevent subsequent progress – the rules governing the exhaustion of IPRs and the obligation, in relation to patents, to grant reciprocal licences, represent significant technical progress in this respect (see Article 71 of the IP Code).
This chapter analyses the greatest exceptions to the rule, examining the cases in which intellectual property law gives rise to fully monopolistic rights by way of an exception to principles of free competition.
In addition, it cannot be ignored that nowadays the relationship between IPRs and competition law has been deeply affected by new technologies.
It is clear to all that new technologies have the potential to revolutionise every field of society, including the law; therefore, they raise many crucial issues that need to be fully investigated in the next future in order to find suitable legal instruments to address the challenges of the new digital era.
These new technologies include what has come to be known as 'big data'.
In other words, the term 'big data' refers to enormous amounts of different types of data produced at high speed from a great variety of sources. This data represents the raw material derived from different sources and that needs to be elaborated and processed to become meaningful, such as the data concerning the density of the traffic collected through the sensors attached to cars.
The tremendous value of big data resides in its capacity to aggregate enormous amount of data at an incredible speed and to convey knowledge that is useful, inter alia, to predict social behaviour, increase security, improve industrial performances and prevent disasters or critical, dangerous circumstances.
For example, data collected through sensors in cars, once analysed, can provide useful information concerning the density of traffic, the level of pollution, the environmental conditions in specific areas and, thus, lead public authorities to adopt effective policies to govern traffic.
Big data affects every sector, including the market and competition.
The acquisition and processing of large amount of data on the behaviour and interests of consumers allow data-driven companies to improve their services and to provide services that really meet users' expectations and wishes. Therefore, datasets based on the information that individuals disclose when using online services have become an extraordinary competitive advantage and a tremendous economic asset in the digital economy.
At this preliminary stage of the investigation, some experts have started to point out that, for example, big data may be considered an essential facility, which is an infrastructure whose duplication is impossible or extremely difficult, and should accordingly be made available to competitors.
forecloses competition in the downstream market and harms the consumer.
In this case, the crucial issue consists in ascertaining the second condition, that is to say whether the refusal to supply big data restricts competition in the downstream market or, on the other hand, the competitors may rely on information derived from alternative sources.
In other words, considering the peculiar nature and characteristics of big data, it must be determined if there is a potential or actual substitute that can be used by competing companies to overcome the negative consequences of the refusal and to compete effectively on the downstream market.
With this regard, it should be noted that, for example, most of the raw data are free and freely available to anyone. Hence competitors may develop their own big data analytics to acquire and to process information and, therefore, play a role in the downstream market.
Moreover, they can buy this software from others or they can purchase datasets from third parties.
Therefore, it is clear from the above that especially in this stage and considering the lack of judicial decisions, the abuse of dominant position involving a refusal to supply big data must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
In this chapter we will address the major issues regarding the intersection between IPRs and competition law under Italian law, although it should be borne in mind that in some respects, the rules will in reality often be set at a European level.
During the past years the Italian courts and the CJEU have addressed some relevant cases law concerning both IPR and competition law topics.
Particularly the Tribunal of Milan8 and then the Court of Appeal of Milan9 decided an important case involving Ryanair and other online travel agencies (OTAs) regarding the 'essential facility doctrine' and the – alleged – abuse of dominant position by Ryanair by refusing to allow the other OTAs to access its databases and the procedures for flight reservations.
Another important case addressed by the CJEU in this field of intersection between the IPR and competition law is the Huawei Technologies v. ZTE case10 regarding the criteria under which the proprietor of the SEP that is in a dominant position may seek an injunction against the infringement of the SEP without violating Article 102 TFEU. This ruling of the CJEU is of the utmost importance because it clearly defines a kind of 'to do list' for the IP owner and precisely lists all the SEP duties it must comply with and the subsequent steps it has to take to prevent its refusal to grant the SEP being regarded as an abuse of dominant position.
In Italy licences of IPRs – not least those over patents, trademarks, know-how and software – are subject to the general principle of freedom of contract.
make the licensor the owner of any independent, severable, improvements by the licensee.
Additionally, one area that is fiercely debated in Italy is the validity of clauses that prohibit a licensee from pursuing disputes over the licensed rights, in and out of the courts.
Absolute restrictions on a licensee's ability to challenge the validity of licensed rights are, generally speaking, considered contrary to competition law. The practical suggestion often put forward to reduce such risks is to change a no-challenge restriction to a right for the licensor to terminate if a challenge is made, and the Court of Milan12 has recently ruled on such an issue, in relation to a patent. A licensee had waived its entitlement to challenge a patent's validity as part of a settlement agreement. The court found this to have been a legitimate waiver of a right that would otherwise have been available to it, and thus a legitimate disposal of its power to pursue actions. Accordingly, the no-challenge provisions were found to be valid.
In relation to technology transfer agreements (TTAs), EU Regulation 316/2014 has been incorporated in full into the Italian legislation.
TTAs include licensing agreements concerning know-how, patents, utility models, design rights, topographies of semiconductor products, supplementary protection certificates and software copyright.
Subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, Article 101(1) TFEU does not apply to TTAs.
In Italy, there is a broad consensus that the doctrine only applies to companies that can be regarded as dominant in a market and that it cannot be applied, on the contrary, to non-dominant companies.
third, the refusal has to be unjustified.
A recent ruling by the Court of Milan14 has based its reasoning on the 'essential facility doctrine', holding that Ryanair abused its dominant position by refusing to allow other online travel agencies (OTAs) to access its databases and the procedures for flight reservations, which can be made only on Ryanair's official website.
The Court of Milan stated that Ryanair holds a 10 per cent market share in the air transport market within the European Union, and has a monopoly on 49 routes; therefore, it is the owner of essential infrastructure facilities.
Thus, the 'upstream' decision to exclude OTAs from being able to sell seats on its flights prevents the OTAs from performing their activities as reservation agents and especially to operate in the downstream market for additional travel services, such as insurance, car rental and hotel reservation.
The Court contested that Ryanair holds a dominant position in the air transport market because it only has a 10 per cent market share on the market and to assert dominance a larger share, of 40 to 50 per cent, is required. Therefore, with this limited market share, Ryanair's decisions and acts cannot be really restrictive of the competition.
Moreover, the Court of Appeal of Milan stated that Ryanair manages essential infrastructure facilities only in relation to the 49 routes for which it has a monopoly.
Therefore, according to the court, Ryanair's decision to sell directly seats on its flights and to deny OTAs access to the procedures for flight reservations cannot be regarded as an abuse of dominant position.
Patent pooling agreements are licensing agreements that may come within the scope of Article 101(1) TFEU and the equivalent Italian legislation, because the creation of a pool may result in price fixing or in a significant reduction in innovation.
It is important to note that in principle a patent pooling agreement should not come within the block exemption provisions of Regulation 316/2014, as an agreement to establish a pool does not qualify as a TTA.
For the purposes of patent pooling, patents can be classified as: (1) complementary or substitute; and (2) essential or non-essential, depending on their nature.
According to the European Antitrust Guidelines (EAGs), the pooling of complementary patents is generally considered pro-competitive because it should not affect, for example, competitive pricing. On the other hand, substitute patents that compete with each other should not be pooled, so that competition between the substitute technologies can be preserved. Essential patents are required to comply with technical standards and are complementary, and thus patent pools comprising essential patents are less likely to conflict with competitive concerns than patent pools that include non-essential patents.
In the EAGs, the Commission sets out the factors to be considered in determining whether pooling agreements fall outside Article 101(1).
In assessing the possible competitive risks and efficiencies of a pooling agreement, the Commission should consider, inter alia: (1) the transparency of the pool creation process; (2) the selection and nature of the technologies; and (3) the measures adopted by the parties against exchange of sensitive information.
Under the IP Code, trademark licences are not required to be made in any particular form, and may be granted on exclusive or non-exclusive terms, and with respect to all or any part of the services or products for which the trademark has been registered, and with respect to all or any part of the relevant territory (see Article 23 of the IP Code).
The grants that give rise to the greatest number of issues, in terms of consumer protection, are those made on non-exclusive terms, as these carry the most significant risk that the public might be misled. Where a non-exclusive licence is granted, the trademark's use is divided among a number of different licensees, with multiple businesses introducing products into the market that carry the same trademark.
The Italian legislation explicitly states that trademark licensing must not result in consumers being misled. That means that inherently any licence granted in Italy is going to include provisions that enable the licensor to oversee the licensee, in terms of the quality of the products it introduces into the market. Such clauses are, therefore, not only lawful in terms of the competition law, but indeed necessary for the licence to be valid, in terms of the law of intellectual property. Generally, trademark licences are viewed positively in Italy from a competition law standpoint.
Overall, the effects are thought favourable, in terms of distribution and efficiency, with benefits to consumption and the development of small and medium-sized businesses – even if that sometimes means compromising the licensee's freedoms in terms of its ability to have a free hand in decision-making on product quality and distribution.
One specific kind of licence is for franchising arrangements, which in Italy have their own legislation, Law No. 129 of 6 May 2004.
Provisions that appear in Italian-law franchising agreements that are restrictive of competition are considered valid and effective provided the potential anticompetitive effects are not excessive, and provided also the franchisor does not have a dominant position in the market for the particular product.
Recently, the Court of Milan17 has found against a franchisor that first dictated both the distribution channels the franchisee had to use for its products and the prices of those products, and then sold its own products into supermarket channels – thereby frustrating all of the franchisee's efforts and investments.
Another issue to consider is in relation to coexistence agreements. These are agreements between independent owners of similar brands, and deal with each party's use and registration of its trademarks in a manner that the parties consider will avoid confusion. Coexistence agreements are relatively common in Italy. There could, however, be concerns if the agreement makes it difficult for either party to effectively enforce its rights against the other, or if the restrictions imposed far outweigh the parties' rights, so that the restrictions imposed are not balanced out by the benefits of avoiding conflict and confusion.
It is also worth mentioning co-marketing agreements, which are also common, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, where they aim to promote the sale and marketing of medicines. Under a co-marketing agreement, for example, two pharmaceutical companies agree to sell, concurrently and autonomously the same product, under different trademarks. Companies typically execute co-marketing agreements because they own trademarks and patents that give them a competitive advantage in the market. Such agreements may, however, generate antitrust concerns if their effective use is as a means of exchanging commercially sensitive information, achieving market-sharing, or as price-fixing arrangements.
In a domestic case involving Novartis and Italfarmaco,18 the ICA began investigating in January 2014 whether Novartis and Italfarmaco had infringed an anticompetitive agreement by coordinating their conduct over a three-year period in relation to tender procedures for the selection of drug suppliers containing the active ingredient of long-acting octreotide. The ICA suspected that the two competitor companies had implemented bid-rigging practices to influence the outcome of tender procedures, and in particular to fix prices, so as to share the market between them. The evidence collected by the ICA indicated that Novartis and Italfarmaco had entered into a co-marketing arrangement for the sale of drugs containing long-acting octreotide, and that this agreement was regulated by a supply contract and a sub-licence, originally made in 1987 and renewed in 2010. Under these contracts, Novartis – which was marketing these drugs under the trademark 'Sandostatin LAR' – undertook to supply the same drugs to Italfarmaco, which sold them under the trade name of 'Longostatina LAR', for which it held a market authorisation. In August 2014, the ICA extended its investigation to cover the co-marketing agreement, to assess whether it had anticompetitive effects.
Articles 64 ter and 64 quater, which reflected virtually verbatim the exceptions to the restricted acts set out in Articles 5 and 6 of the Software Copyright Directive.
There are no specific issues related to software licensing agreements other than those described above.
One interesting case currently being examined20 by the ICA relates to a possible abuse of dominant position by a software rights holder. The ICA investigation into this case is currently ongoing.
In Italy, since 2015 all filings in civil trials made electronically have been managed by a software program. The Italian company Net Service acquired a competitive advantage in this market by being awarded three tenders, in 2001, 2002 and 2007, to develop the central electronic infrastructure for this electronic filing procedure.
In addition to the central infrastructure, managed exclusively by Net Service, certain software applications are necessary to use the procedure. These applications are supplied by various companies, including Net Service, in a competitive regime. The applications need to communicate with the central electronic infrastructure, and Net Service, in its capacity as the exclusive supplier of the central system, is required to provide all competitors with all the information necessary to allow the systems to interoperate. An independent software developer association filed a complaint alleging that Net Service abuses its dominant position and breaches Article 101 of the TFEU and Article 3 of the IAL, in the market for software applications, by: (1) obtaining the information necessary for interoperability faster than the other companies are able; (2) providing competitors with a different 'model office', without providing the technical information needed to use it; and (3) installing a software update on the central system without giving competitors any details of its operating principles. The result, it was claimed, was that Net Service's software applications were more efficient because of this, and so preferred by the final customers.
A technical standard is defined by standard authorities as 'a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognised body that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their result, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context'.21 Standards may, therefore, be defined as a set of parameters and technical and qualitative requirements that certain goods, services and processes must meet to be functional for their intended use.
Standards may also comprise technical knowledge that is covered by patents, and if this technical knowledge is essential and fundamental to implement a standard (i.e., they constitute standard-essential patents (SEPs), the application of standards cannot be avoided for the production of goods that must comply with those standards.
SEPs are patents that are essential to a standard and that cover technology to which a standard makes reference.
The holder of an SEP who is in a dominant position may not require licensees to agree to excessive royalty rates. Under Article 102 TFEU and its equivalent Italian rule, these rates may not be unfair; in cases where the SEP holder has made a FRAND commitment, these rates must be precisely fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.
A patent holder who brings an action to protect his or her patent in Italy may seek injunctive relief against the infringer (Section 124 of the IP Code).
The fact that an injunction is sought on the basis of an SEP, and that the alleged infringer defends itself by invoking violation of FRAND commitments and antitrust rules, does not per se impede grant of an injunction.
The anticompetitive effects that an injunction could give rise to have, however, led the Italian courts that have examined the question to be very prudent in their grant of injunctions to protect SEPs. In deciding whether or not to issue an injunction, the Italian courts have held that they must first carry out an analysis of dealings between the parties prior to the action. In this regard, willingness on the part of an SEP holder to grant a licence upon fair conditions and a demonstration of interest in obtaining a licence by the party against whom an injunction is sought can be crucial.
In the Samsung case, it was established that the SEP holder had been under an obligation to enter into a licence agreement, but this obligation would not be considered breached if the prospective licensee did not seek a licence from the SEP holder.
In a nutshell, an injunction may be granted only against an unwilling licensee. Reference was also made in the interim decision to periculum in mora, with the court declaring that the patent holder's right 'can be adequately safeguarded in the suit in the merits, and they are not able to permit the immediate order of an inhibitory provision, as that does not appear to be supported by the requisites for there to be a sufficient degree of periculum in mora, in terms of irreparability as well as timeliness'. The Samsung decision, in denying the preliminary injunction, also referred to the question of the balancing of interests between patent holders and consumers, with the latter's to prevail.
In this case, Huawei Technologies, a multinational company active in the field of telecommunications, held a patent essential to the 'long term evolution' standard.
On the other hand, ZTE, also active in the telecommunications sector, marketed products equipped with software linked to the said standard.
Huawei and ZTE initially engaged in discussions concerning the infringement of SEP and the possibility of concluding a licence on FRAND terms in relation to it.
After the failure of the discussion for the licence of the SEP, Huawei started an action for infringement against ZTE before a German Court, seeking inter alia an injunction prohibiting the infringement, the rendering of accounts, the recall of products and an award of damages.
The proceeding was related to the interpretation of Article 102 TFEU and the issue to be decided focused on whether the action brought by Huawei Technologies might be considered an abuse of that company's dominant position.
Therefore, considering the different approaches to the issue, the German Court decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the question to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling, essentially asking in what circumstances the bringing of an action for infringement, by an undertaking in a dominant position and holding a SEP, which seeks an injunction prohibiting the infringement of that SEP, is to be regarded as an abuse contrary to Article 102 TFEU.
The CJEU in its ruling precisely lists all the duties the SEP proprietor must comply with and the subsequent steps it has to take to prevent that its refusal to grant the SEP may be regarded as an abuse of dominant position.
in addition, where no agreement is reached on the details of the FRAND terms following the counter-offer by the alleged infringer, the parties may request that the amount of the royalties be determined by an independent third party.
Although the CJEU does not address the question of whether the SEP owner is in a dominant position, because such issue is not dispute by the parties in the main proceedings, this is an important ruling because it clearly offsets forth a 'to do list' for the IP owner and clarifies the duties it has to comply with to prevent the exercise of its IP rights constituting an abuse of dominance pursuant to Article 102 TFEU.
Where two undertakings merge, or one acquires control, and thus the ability to exercise significant influence, over another undertaking, that may – under Article 7 of the IAL – give rise to a concentration. The acquisition of intellectual property rights from one party by another may constitute a merger between two firms under Article 5(a) of the IAL. A concentration may also occur where two or more undertakings establish a joint venture that performs on a lasting basis all the functions of an autonomous economic entity (Article 5 of the IAL). From the standpoint of the market's functioning, what matters is whether the concentration is able to reduce competition, in particular by enabling the new entity to increase prices or apply terms that are disadvantageous to its counterparties.
Under Article 16 of the IAL, concentrations require prior notification to the ICA where combined worldwide turnover generated by all the undertakings involved, and domestically by the company being acquired, exceeds thresholds that the regulator updates annually, assuming that the concentration does not otherwise require examination by the European Commission.
Where the domestic regulator considers that a concentration implies the creation or strengthening of a dominant position on the relevant market such as to eliminate or reduce competition substantially for an extended period, then that concentration may either be prohibited from going forward, or its execution may be made subject to satisfaction of certain conditions that are intended to eliminate the possible effects that might otherwise restrict competition.
Where an undertaking acquires a business division of another undertaking, it must be possible in any event to associate a turnover with that division. Applying this test, the acquisition of a trademark, a patent or other IPRs may also constitute a concentration – if a trademark or patent generates turnover then its acquisition may give rise to a concentration.
One well-known example in Italy saw the ICA examine a proposed 1999 acquisition by Coca-Cola.25 The regulator scrutinised the transaction to see whether it might give rise to the creation or strengthening of a dominant position on the relevant market such as to eliminate or reduce competition substantially for an extended period in the Italian market.
The transaction involved Coca-Cola acquiring (with respect to the Italian market) ownership of the Schweppes brands of mixer drinks and tonic water, and also the Canada Dry brand of cola, and the associated intellectual property. The acquirer would also gain the assets used in manufacturing concentrates for the drinks marketed under those brands. Included within the transaction was a series of Italian-registered trademarks that Cadbury Schweppes was not using in Italy. The examination of the market's competitive structure, and the two parties' competitive positions, clearly revealed the importance of the concentration, which Coca-Cola ultimately decided not to pursue.
In April 2007, the ICA issued a decision26 prohibiting the acquisition by Seat Pagine Gialle of 12.88 Servizio di Consultazione Telefonica, a company that provided telephone information services to subscribers. As a result of the merger, Seat Pagine Gialle would have acquired the rights to use the '1288' and '1248' numbers, as well as a licence to the brand.
At that time, in Italy, subscriber information services were being provided through numbers in forms such as '12XY' and '892UUU', based on the information contained in the single national telephone subscribers database (NTSD), set up under rules established by the Communications Authority. Telecom Italia, BT Albacom and Eutelia were selected as the operators authorised to make the NTSD available to third parties at a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory price.
The investigation found that the concentration would strengthen Seat's dominant position in the national market for directory assistance services. Seat was the only operator that was allowed, following the market's liberalisation, to go on using the '89.24.24 Pronto Pagine Gialle' number it had been marketing since 2001. As a result, it had continued to enjoy the benefits of its advertising investments and retained its customer base and goodwill.
Furthermore – and it is at this point that the law of competition and intellectual property intersect – the ICA classified the database containing consumer profiles as an essential facility for operating in the downstream market for telephone information services. It also recognised the importance of the way that the crude information might be processed, and therefore considered that the merger would give Seat a strategic advantage, since it could exploit synergies from access to the combined information base of advertising in the Yellow Pages and the White Pages directories and databases (in hard copy and online), with both owned and controlled by Seat.
These two databases owned by Seat contained additional, more detailed, information compared to the NTSD, and such information (collected and processed by Seat over the years) could not be readily duplicated by other operators. The merger would, therefore, strengthen Seat's dominant position, since existing competition would be eliminated, while potential competition would be curbed by rising entry barriers.
Finally, the authority noted that, on completion of the operation, the probable elimination of the '1288' brand would have led to a reduction in consumer choice and the loss of one of the specialist directory assistance operators. The ICA therefore prohibited the operation.
In terms of domestic case law, the Pfizer case27 is the most famous example of patent abuse.
On 12 February 2014, the Italian Council of State delivered its Judgment 693, which overturned a decision by the Regional Administrative Court in Lazio and upheld a decision by the ICA of 11 January 2012 in Case A431 involving Ratiopharm and Pfizer. The ICA had brought an investigation following complaints filed by some generic drug manufacturers. In its decision of 11 January 2012, the authority had found that Pfizer had abused a dominant position in breach of Article 102 TFEU by implementing a complex strategy intended to establish barriers to entry for generic drug manufacturers on the market for the sale and marketing of latanoprost-based drugs for the treatment of glaucoma. More specifically, the unlawful conduct, which the ICA had ordered to cease, imposing a fine of €10.6 million – consisted of: (1) having 'deceitfully' extended the patent protection over the drug Xalatan from September 2009 to July 2011 and, subsequently, to January 2012, by applying for a divisional patent and the relevant supplementary protection certificate, and exploiting the resulting situation of legal uncertainty, in order to delay the entry of equivalent latanoprost-based drugs on the relevant market; (2) effectively maintaining exclusive rights to market Xalatan, even after patent protection had expired; and (3) as a consequence, imposing additional costs to the national health service estimated at €14 million. In its judgment, No. 7467 of 3 September 2012, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court had granted Pfizer's appeal, overturning the ICA's decision to reject the commitments the company had offered and the decision finding an infringement under Article 102 TFEU. The Regional Administrative Court considered the conduct alleged against Pfizer to have been held within lawful limits. The Regional Administrative Court found that the company had applied for a divisional patent in 2002, seven years before the generic drug manufacturers had contemplated entering the market, as soon as it had realised that Xalatan had less patent protection in Italy. That had represented the exercise of a right. The court ruled, and accordingly could not be considered as reflecting a strategy to exclude others.
In granting the authority's appeal, the Italian Council of State found that 'although the conduct and actions of Pfizer, if taken individually, constitute the exercise of a right abstractly envisaged under the legal system, including the sector-specific provisions, these actions gave rise to complex and intricate conduct that the ICA had not incorrectly described as an abuse of a right and, therefore, anticompetitive.' More specifically, the Council specified that the 'abuse of a right' category within which the abuse of a dominant position falls is not to be considered an infringement in formal terms, but rather 'the altered use of the formal elements of the right, for the purposes of achieving objectives other than those specified by the legislature'.
According to the Council of State, the complex strategy implemented by Pfizer had been correctly described by the ICA as an abuse of a right since it comprised several unlawful acts – including not only an application for a divisional patent for an active ingredient that was already protected and the associated protection certificate extending the duration of the protection, but also the warning letters sent to competitors, the consequent legal actions, the action taken before the Italian Medicines Agency, AIFA, to prevent generic drug manufacturers from including it on the transparency list and the subsequent request for a paediatric extension – aimed at achieving 'an aim other than that of patent protection', in this case attempting to exclude competitors from the market.
The Council of State did not, therefore, uphold that part of the Regional Administrative Court's judgment that had tied the lawfulness of Pfizer's conduct to patent protection. In this regard, the Court explained that Pfizer's ability to bring an application for a divisional patent in relation to a product already protected by Pfizer was not at dispute, as a right fully recognised under the sector-specific legal provisions. Rather, it was the company's use of this right that was being questioned, as opportunistic and inconsistent with the aim for which the legislature envisaged the right to exploit a patent-protected drug.
Further, according to the Italian Council of State, the ICA's findings had been supported by the fact that, as set out in the statement of objections No. 2790 of 22 May 2013 filed in the appeal proceedings, the divisional patent did not result in the release on the market of any product other than the product that was already present.
As well as the Pfizer case, there is extensive literature and case law in Italy on patent abuse and sham litigation, especially regarding situations where a patent is found void in the course of the litigation. There have been a number of cases where sending a letter demanding that a competitor not put a product on the market may give rise to issues under Article 2598 of the Civil Code (which prohibits unfair competition), on the basis that a threat of litigation that is made in bad faith, or negligently in ignorance of a patent's invalidity, constitutes an unacceptable attempt to disrupt a market.28 In competition terms, a notice sent to a competitor's clients seeking to enforce IP rights that are subsequently declared void is considered prima facie to constitute unfair competitive practice.
By contrast, in a dispute involving an essential patent, the Court of Turin29 found a patent to be invalid for lack of innovative step, but nonetheless did not find there had been unfair competition or any abuse of a dominant position by the holders (the companies Rovi and Starsight). The court held that Rovi and Starsight were exercising their intellectual property in good faith, because the patent: (1) had almost reached its expiry date without being challenged as invalid; and (2) had been licensed to various companies that deemed it valid and paid the relevant royalties.
All the mentioned cases point to how the system regulating intellectual property is considered in Italy to be intrinsically hazardous to free competition, and thus there is a demand that ways be found to use the competition law to mitigate this, and make the system more sympathetic to competition.
While there is thus still scope for conflict between the two fields, it would appear that they are nonetheless increasingly finding common cause.
1 Luciano Di Via is a partner and Monica Riva is a counsel at Clifford Chance Studio Legale Associato.
2 See Franceschelli, 'Struttura monopolistica degli istituti di diritto industriale', in Studi in onore di Francesco Messineo, Milan, 1959, Vol. III, p. 95, stating that the purpose of a patent 'is not so much to enable the performance of an act, as to prevent others from doing the same'.
3 See recently Court of Milan, 12 March 2015, in relation to the protection of the shape of a popular watch as trademark; see also Ghidini-Capuzzi, 'Profili di rilievo concorrenziale nella disciplina dei marchi', reported at www.aippi.it.
4 Frassi, 'Lo statuto di non decettività del marchio tra diritto interno, diritto comunitario ed alla luce della disciplina sulle pratiche commerciali ingannevoli', in Riv. Dir. Ind. 2009; Galli, 'Lo 'statuto di non decettività' del marchio: attualità e prospettive di un concetto giuridico', Studi in memoria di Paola Frassi, Milan 2010, p. 371; Ghidini, 'Decadenza del marchio per decettività sopravvenuta', in Riv. Dir. Ind. 1993, p. 211 et seq.
5 See Vanzetti-Di Cataldo, Manuale di diritto industriale, Milan, 2012, p. 377, who considers the patent system a positive, at least within a larger market system.
6 Definition available at http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/big-data/.
7 Decision of ICA and IAPPI available in Italian at https://www.agcom.it/documentazione/documento?p_p_auth=fLw7zRht&p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_2fsZcpGr12AO&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_count=1&_101_INSTANCE_2fsZcpGr12AO_struts_action=%2Fasset_publisher%2Fview_content&_101_INSTANCE_2fsZcpGr12AO_assetEntryId=7829912&_101_INSTANCE_2fsZcpGr12AO_type=document.
8 See Court of Milan, Special Section for Enterprises, 4 June 2013, judgment No. 7825.
9 See Court of Appeal of Milan, Special Section for Enterprises, 12 October 2015, judgment No. 3900.
10 See CJEU, 16 July 2015, C-170/13.
11 This is the concept of 'relative dominance', which does not always constitute a dominant position for the purposes of competition law. Further, Article 9 of the Law No. 192 of 18 June 1998 (governing sub-supply in production activities) prohibits the abuse of economic dependence as a form of 'relative dominance'.
12 See Court of Milan, 12 March 2012.
13 Joined Cases C-241/91P and C-242/91P, Radio Telefis Eireann v. Commission, 1995 O.J. (C 137) (Magill).
14 See Court of Milan, Special Section for Enterprises, 4 June 2013, judgment No. 7825.
15 See Court of Appeal of Milan, Special Section for Enterprises, 12 October 2015, judgement No. 3900.
16 See Colangelo, 'I contratti di patent pooling' in Quaderni di Aida, Giuffrè, Milan, 2008.
17 See Court of Milan, 24 January 2014 (interim decision).
18 I770 – Arca/Novartis-Italfarmaco, available on the ICA website, www.agcm.com.
19 Upon the outcome of the case, Novartis and Italfarmaco offered a list of commitments, which were evaluated by the ICA with a market test and then amended by the parties to address the concerns the market test had brought to light. Ultimately, the commitments were approved and made binding by the ICA, which closed its investigation without an adjudication on the merits.
20 A490 – Net Service S.p.A./Assogestionali, available on the ICA website, www.agcm.com.
21 ETSI website and ISO/IEC Guide 2:1996, definition 3.2.
22 Court of Milan, 5 January 2012 (interim decision).
23 Court of Milan, 8 November 2011.
24 CJEU, 16 July 2015, C-170/13.
25 See Sabrina Latusi, 'Il controllo pubblico delle relazioni di canale: le politiche di vendita all'ingrosso di Coca Cola' in Industria e Distribuzione, vol. 2, pp. 52–63.
26 See Case C8144 Seat Pagine Gialle/1288 Servizio di consultazione telefonica, available on the ICA website, www.agcm.com.
27 Council of State, 12 February 2014 No. 693 overturning the ruling of Tar Lazio, 3 September 2012 No. 2012 that annulled the AGCM, A431 – Ratiopharm/Pfizer. See also Ghidini, Cavani, Piserà, 'Abuso del diritto al brevetto e abuso di posizione dominante: il caso Pfitzer' in Italian Antitrust Law Review No. 3/2014 pp. 133 et seq.
28 See ex multis Italian Court of Cassation, 26 November 1997, No. 11854 and Court of Milan, 29 March 2007.
29 See Court of Turin, 10 March 2011.


Henry FitzGerald Heard was born in London on October 6, 1889, the youngest of three boys. His family home, however, was in Ireland, where the Heards have been landed gentry since the sixteenth century, bearing the formal ancestral name "Heard of Kinsale, County Cork." According to Heard Family lore, in 1579 John Heard of Wiltshire came to Ireland with Walter Raleigh and decided to settle there. Gerald's father, Henry James Heard (1856-1931), a direct descendant of the sixteenth-century John Heard, graduated from Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, founded in 1348. He became a Deacon in the Church of England in 1883 and a Priest in 1886. At the time of Gerald's birth, he was the Curate at Christ Church South Hackney in East London. He served at Shortlands, Kent, from 1890-1892 before becoming Rector of St. Michael's Church at Bath in 1894, and residing in the Rectory there until 1915.
The young Gerald's early years were divided between Bath and his paternal grandmother's home at Ballintubber, Carrigtwohill, County Cork, as Gerald's side of the family had moved from Kinsale to Ballintubber in the eighteenth century. His boyhood years were unhappy, as his father, who often raged at the boy, subjected him to beatings. His older brothers teased him. Gerald's mother, Maud Jervis Heard, the daughter of Alexander Bannatyne of County Limerick, died when he was a child, and afterward the Rev. Heard remarried. Although his stepmother was fond of him (as he was of her), his excessive need for love made him emotionally vulnerable and overly responsive to the slightest show of kindness. This heightened sensitivity coupled with his uncommonly precocious mind made him an irresistible target of the sadistic teasing for which the English public-school boy is notorious. Gerald finally learned to fend off the boys' attacks by keeping them absorbed in outlandish, outrageously unbelievable stories that he made up as he went along and which he recounted with such conviction that in the end he became a kind of bard who, so long as his tales could hold the attention and interest of his schoolmates, was left unmolested.
Having finished public school at Sherborne School in Dorset, his university years, 1908-1913, were spent at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and eldest brother. There, in 1911, he took a second class in the History Tripos, the final undergraduate examination that confers a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. He remained there in residence on a scholarship doing postgraduate work studying theology as a candidate in preparation for Holy Orders and a career as an Anglican clergyman, but subsequently he never pursued ordination.
From his youth on, it had been Heard's intention to follow in the footsteps of his paternal grandfather Rev. John Bickford Heard (author of a number of religious books), his father, and his eldest brother Alexander St. John Heard, and take Holy Orders in the Church of England. However, such a probing mind as his, consumed with curiosity and with such a vast spread of interests, had been on a collision course with doubt as to many of the doctrines of Christianity from the time he was in his teens. This happened even as a youth of eight, when he saw one of the first X-ray photographs in a shop window, which was treated by the public as a fraud. This was Heard's first brush with skepticism. The same reaction occurred with the Wright Brother's historic 1907 flight, again initially dismissed by a doubting public. The crash came at last in 1916. The result was a nervous breakdown.
After a long illness, Heard recovered to find that the young man who had wanted to be a priest-missionary had become a scientific materialist with a strong sense of social responsibility and an equally strong conviction that the world could be tidied up, that justice could and must prevail, and that it was his duty to dedicate his life and efforts to a frontal attack on the obstacles to these ends. The next few years, then, found him active in such things as agricultural cooperatives, progressive education, prison visiting, and social reform.
By December 12, 1919, Heard became associated with Sir Horace Plunkett (1854-1932), founder of the Irish agricultural cooperative movement, and worked with him as a highly trusted confidential secretary for about ten years, living first in Kilteragh, his Dublin home, and from 1923 on, living in Plunkett's Crest House close to Weybridge near London. During the time in Ireland he came to know well many of the notables of the time. George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte, W. B. Yeats, Lord Fingall, George Russell, Colonel E. M. House, and Lady Gregory were some of those with whom Heard made friends when they were Plunkett's houseguests. "In Gerald Heard," Plunkett once wrote, "I have a secretary who, however ill I feel, can amuse the most brilliant and most varied guests."
According to a February 1, 1923 article in "The Irish Independent," Heard was the lone resident in Kilteragh when the residence was set on fire the previous Tuesday night, barely escaping with his life. Heard penned 1924's Narcissus while at Crest House, which Sir Horace praised as "a brilliant book," while at the same time lamenting Gerald's lost secretarial skills during the time he spent producing the book. Heard traveled with Plunkett to Capetown, South Africa in January 1925 when Sir Horace decided to winter there. Back in London he convinced the skeptical but obliging Plunkett to accompany him on a visit to the Laboratory for Psychical Research in September 1926. By 1927 Heard had scaled down his hours for Plunkett, now that his own career was on the rise. In due course, by about 1929, Heard had substantially left his work with Plunkett. However, they remained close friends until Plunkett's death in 1932.
Turning up at the door of the Plunkett Foundation's London offices one morning before departing for the States in 1937, Heard said he, "…had something which might be of interest to you." He then produced the complete set of Plunkett's diaries, maintained until a week or so of Plunkett's death. A measure of Plunkett's confidence and reliance in Heard was shown when Heard was named executor of his will—a task that took eighteen years to discharge.
 Horace Plunkett: An Anglo-American Irishman by Margaret Digby. Used by kind permission of the Plunkett Foundation, as are quotations from Sir Horace Plunkett's unpublished Diaries.
I. Who Is Gerald Heard?


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Can Better Data Improve Gender Equality?
Words by 3p Contributor
By Teresa Fogelberg
We are well into the new century, one in which we will likely travel to Mars, create artificial intelligence and potentially cure diseases that have plagued humanity since its inception. But flying in the face of all that we have achieved is the startling fact that women are still at a structural disadvantage in nearly every facet of life.
How can this be the case?
Not only have we not achieved gender equality, but if we look closer at some situations, such as conflicts in South Sudan or even political developments in the U.S., it can also seem that in some respects the gender gap is widening.
For example, on Feb. 27, the Bangladesh parliament approved a law that permits girls under the age of 18 to marry (under "special circumstances") with permission from their parents and a court. The law provides no minimum age for these marriages. This is a devastating step backward for Bangladesh, which has the highest rate of child marriage in Asia and one of the highest rates in the world: 52 percent of Bangladeshi girls marry before age 18, and almost a fifth marry before the age of 15.
So on this International Women's Day, we are faced with a pressing question: What needs to be done to address this shameful state of affairs? Or in other words, how do we ensure that the little girl born in Bangladesh enjoys the same rights and opportunities as the little boy born in England?
Of course there is no simple solution to this problem. The ugly fact is that gender inequality has always been a part of human societies. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche states, in simple and convincing words, in her smash hit booklet We Should All be Feminists: "We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved. Men [still] rule the world."
But for the first time in history, we have the international agreements, the tools and capabilities to change this horrible state of affairs. There is a whole series of international conventions and treaties, of which the UN Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women is the most famous. And since last year, gender equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goals.
SDG 5 on gender equality
The pressing need to eliminate the gender gap is acknowledged in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which every country and every business should be working to achieve by 2030.
SDG 5 calls for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Within this global goal, specific targets lay out the myriad ways in which females face disadvantages. Women experience de jure and de facto discrimination in nearly every region of the world. Women are also subject to an appalling level of physical and sexual violence, even in the most progressive societies on the planet: 70 percent of the victims of human trafficking are women. In some parts of the world, little girls are subjected to forced marriages and even genital mutilation.
And of course, women have unequal access to economic resources; we are all too often paid less for the same work done by men, and we have less access to financial services and ownership and control of property.
In other words, achieving SDG 5 will be incredibly challenging for all relevant actors: individual men and women, local and national governments, as well as business large and small.
The crucial first step we need to take is to collect robust data on the gender gap. This is necessary to be able to know the baseline against which we can measure results. The old adage is true: You can't manage what you don't measure.
The data gap
Closing the gender gap will be a daunting task, but there is hope because, frankly, the world has done so little to address this problem. As a result, we can make quick gains in this area if, collectively, we are serious about improving the situation.
We need a serious effort to collect and compile useful data on gender inequality. We know that all too often women and men are operating on different playing fields, but the shocking truth is that we know very little about how pervasive discrimination against women actually is. Nor do we really have a grasp on basic facts like exactly how many women are sold into slavery each year. Rough estimates will not cut it if we are serious about tackling these problems.
Remarks from Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of U.N. Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka last September highlight the poor state of affairs when it comes to data on gender equality:
"Right now we do not have data for 80 percent of the indicators to monitor SDG 5. That is serious. This is an urgent challenge that requires urgent solutions," she said. "Currently, lack of political will and chronic under-investment plague gender data production and only 13 percent of countries dedicate a regular budget for gender statistics."
Empowering reporting on SDG 5
Clearly we must do better. The scarce data we have on gender equality does not paint a pretty picture, despite GRI's 20 years of work in this space. But we need to push for even more of this data to truly understand the challenge.
Luckily the SDGs provide a framework for action. Unlike their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs explicitly call for private-sector action to help us achieve the global goals. Corporate reporting, using the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards, can help fill the data gap.
Also, GRI recently launched a groundbreaking initiative with the U.N. Global Compact called the Corporate Action Group for Reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals. This action platform builds on more than 15 years of innovation and cooperation between the two leading organizations in sustainability reporting. The goal is to produce a global list of prioritized disclosures for tracking business contributions to the SDGs. These will be presented by the platform members at a special event at the U.N. High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July. Additionally, there will be a publication on leadership and best practice for business on SDG reporting. This will be released at the U.N. Private Sector Forum, convened during the U.N. General Assembly in September.
It's time for the business community to step up and help close the gender gap. Together we can take the first step by generating useful data on gender inequality -- data that we can then use to empower action to rectify this oldest of injustices.
It's the right thing to do, but it will also help businesses attract and retain the best young women. I truly believe that in the 21st century, women will take up their rightful position of equality. I implore all governments and businesses to be on the right side of history. We have international agreements and regulation and -- maybe more importantly – a different mindset.
Chimamanda inspires us by asking us to dream about and plan for a different and fairer world: a world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves.
Teresa Fogelberg is GRI's Deputy Chief Executive and heads GRI's Policy Team, which works to enable smart policy on sustainability around the world.
3p Contributor
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Murder on the Orient Express may not strike most people as political. A 1934 novel by Agatha Christie, the most successful American novelist of all time judging by books sold (albeit she was born and lived abroad), it has been famously filmed in 1974, directed by Sidney Lumet, and filmed repeatedly since—in 2001 as a made-for-television film, directed by Carl Schenkel, in 2010 as a made-for-television film directed by Philip Martin, and now in 2017 as a full-scale film directed by Kenneth Branagh. The 1974 film, with Albert Finney as Christie's famous Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot leading the star-studded cast, long set the standard for public perceptions of the story, and helped lead to mixed reviews for the 2017 film. The Atlantic found the latter "inert" and the Times (of London) only gave it two stars.
Established Professor of History at the University of Exeter and Senior Fellow at FPRI, Jeremy Black has published many books, including The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007, The British Seaborne Empire and The Power of Knowledge.
How Could China Bargain for a Peaceful Accommodation?


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Apple says Samsung "simply seeks to delay and derail the damages retrial" scheduled for November
On Tuesday I reported on Samsung's claim that Apple seeks "vastly greater damages" in the retrial scheduled for November 2013 and the related motion for relief from the case management order concerning the retrial. For the procedural background of this, let me refer you to the post I just linked to. In a nutshell, Samsung argued that a new damages report from a new damages expert (because Apple's damages expert from last year's trial, Terry Musika, had passed away in the meantime) violates previous court orders that Apple's new expert had to base her report on all of the theories and methodologies approved last time, and on the same data, except that certain notice periods would be adjusted.
Judge Lucy Koh wanted to minimize the potential for dispute at this stage. She even wanted to eliminate it that way, but she knew that there's always room for disagreement in this bitterly-contested litigation. At the case management conference in April, the judge and Apple agreed that there "shouldn't be anything" to discuss in terms of motions to strike from each other's damages reports, but Judge Koh figured that something might come up anyway. Here's an excerpt from the hearing transcript (Mr. Jacobs is Morrison & Foerster's Michael Jacobs, counsel for Apple):
The Court: Now, motion to strike from each other's expert reports, I would -- can we limited that to ten pages?
Mr. Jacobs: Is it clear, Your Honor, that we're not --
The Court: There really shouldn't be anything.
Mr. Jacobs: There shouldn't be anything.
The Court: If everyone follows my ruling of no new theories, no new methodologies, no new data, no new damages period, there really shouldn't be. But I'm not totally optimsitic based on my experience with this case over the last two years.
Samsung also agreed to this. It just wanted to preserve its record for an appeal by formally stating that it maintains all of last year's objections to the previous report with respect to the new one.
Judge Koh later clarified again that she wanted to avoid duplicity:
The Court: [...] I don't want to relitigate -- anything that's already been decided and has already survived a Daubert motion or a motion in limine will continue to be admissible and part of the case.
The above framework provides both parties with limited opportunity for challenging each other's reports. But as Samsung's motion made clear, Samsung doesn't like the numbers ("vastly greater") at which Apple's new damages expert arrived. The only way to challenge the numbers (provided that the underlying numbers are correct and that there are no mathematical errors) is to dispute the methdology. And under the case schedule set in April, its objections to Apple's report would be discussed at an October 10, 2013 hearing -- one month and two days before the trial date. So Samsung wanted to start a fight over Apple's expert report now, and the procedural vehicle it chose is a "motion for administrative relief".
Apple primarily addresses Samsung's motion on substance, denying the allegations of any failure to comply with previous orders. But it also points to the fact that the existing case management order allows Samsung to raise any such issues, and it notes that in the Northern District of California, the applicable "Local Rule 7-11 exists to resolve non-substantive administrative issues not addressed in the Federal Rules, such as changes to 'page limitations' or filing 'documents under seal.'" By contrast, this here is substantively a Daubert motion and procedurally a motion to vacate all deadlines. But Samsung's alleged "misuse" of this motion category required Apple to respond over the Independence Day weekend.
Elsewhere in its brief, Apple says this:
"Samsung's real purpose is clear: it simply seeks to delay and derail the damages retrial."
The further process is now in Judge Koh's hands (the applicable rule provides for no reply by Samsung). Apple's opposition brief explains why the new damages report is in full compliance with court orders, and supporting declarations were signed by the new damages expert and the firm that provided her (and the previous damages expert) with input (Davis declaration, Robinson declaration).
I just linked to those documents if you're interested in further detail. I guess Judge Koh will simply deny Samsung's motion and carry on with the case, but if she's concerned about Samsung possibly having a factual basis for claiming Apple violated a court order, then there'll probably be further briefing and/or a hearing.
Florian Mueller um 11:30 AM


TECHE REGIONAL BECOMES A "WELL SPOT" FOR WELL-AHEAD LOUISIANA.
TECHE REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER IS PROUD TO BE A "WELL SPOT" FOR WELL-AHEAD LOUISIANA.
Well-Ahead Louisiana is an initiative started by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) aimed at improving the health and wellness of Louisiana citizens. Well-Ahead Louisiana promotes and recognizes healthy choices in the spaces and places where we live and work every day that make it easier for us all to live healthier, happier lives - from going tobacco-free, to ensuring healthy lunch options or to supporting workplace fitness programs. Well-Ahead promotes voluntary changes towards health in communities throughout the state. This is about Louisiana's people, leaders, businesses and organizations taking action because it is the right - and healthy - thing to do.


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Ignacio Santiago Aliseda (born 14 March 2000) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a winger for Swiss Super League club FC Lugano.

Club career
Aliseda began his career with Defensa y Justicia. He was moved into the club's first-team squad during the 2018–19 Argentine Primera División season. After being an unused substitute for a Copa Argentina match with Argentinos Juniors and Copa Sudamericana ties with El Nacional and Banfield, Aliseda made his professional debut in a 2018 Copa Sudamericana round of sixteen second leg encounter with Primera División counterparts Banfield. He was substituted on for Fabián Bordagaray with twenty minutes left, which preceded him netting Defensa y Justicia's second goal of a 2–0 win in stoppage time.

On 19 February 2020, Aliseda joined MLS side Chicago Fire for an undisclosed fee on a four-year deal. His first appearance came in a 2–0 loss in the MLS is Back Tournament against the San Jose Earthquakes at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex on 19 July, which was followed by a goal in his fourth game at home to FC Cincinnati on 25 August in MLS.

On 13 December 2021, it was announced that Aliseda would join Swiss Super League side FC Lugano on 1 January 2022.

International career
In March 2018, Aliseda received a call-up to the Argentina U19s. In 2019, he made the U23s' final squad for the Pan American Games in Peru. He featured in two fixtures as Argentina won the tournament.

Career statistics

Honours
Lugano
Swiss Cup: 2021–22

Argentina U23
 Pan American Games: 2019

References

External links
 Profile at Major League Soccer

2000 births
Living people
Footballers from Buenos Aires
Argentine footballers
Association football forwards
Argentina youth international footballers
Footballers at the 2019 Pan American Games
Pan American Games gold medalists for Argentina
Pan American Games medalists in football
Medalists at the 2019 Pan American Games
Argentine Primera División players
Major League Soccer players
Designated Players (MLS)
Swiss Super League players
Defensa y Justicia footballers
Chicago Fire FC players
FC Lugano players
Argentine expatriate footballers
Argentine expatriate sportspeople in the United States
Expatriate soccer players in the United States
Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland
Expatriate footballers in Switzerland

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Moebius had the most liked content!
The only negativity that was on these forums were the few trolls who liked to mess with people. It's not anyone's fault they take the bait. Not everything is roses and peaches. But the stupidest, most idiotic decision was removing status updates; in what way they destroyed these forums, I will never know.
You set out to be everything ATRL is now, and now you've slowly turned into it. Ironic.


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Comedienne
Fast Talker
Fran's World Podcasts
Voiceovers and Videos
Fran's Store
World Record Holder Variety Show
Leave a Comment	/ Press Releases
SUNY Old Westbury Hosts The First 'World Record Holder Variety Show' with The World's Fastest: Talker, Knife Thrower, Hula Hooper, Memory Expert and Twisted Shockmeister.
SUNY Old Westbury- So what do a fast talker, a hula hooper, a memory expert, knife thrower, and a sideshow bally master all have in common? They all are the best at what they do, are in multiple world record books, and happen to be professional variety artists all performing together for one night only, Saturday, Oct 9th at 8 p.m. at the Campus Center, Maguire Theater at SUNY Old Westbury College located at 223 Store Hill Road in Old Westbury, Long Island.
This group of internationally acclaimed performers will dazzle the audience with their world record demonstrations, do a stage performance, answer questions, sign autographs and take pictures with the audience. Plus, the Great Throwdini will attempt to break one of his 25 world records live at the show!
The talent coordinator at the college, Mike Slauenwhite said, "When Fran Capo presented this world record show idea to us, we thought it was fantastic. It's very rare we can get this international cast of record holders together under one roof. We thought it would be entertaining and educational for our students as well as the general public to experience this one and a half hour, unusual & fascinating show. After all, how often does one get to see an attempt to break a world record broken? It may inspire some to set their own records of excellence."
The cast of unusual characters includes:
Fran Capo – World's Fastest Talking Female (Guinness World Records and producer of this World Record show)
Comedienne, 14 time author, spokesperson, motivational speaker, TV host of Live it Up! adventurer and holder of five world records and known as the Guinness Book of World Records Fastest Talking Female clocked at 603.32 wpm – that's 11 words a second or seven miles an hour! She has been on over 3,500 radio & television shows including; Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, Martha Stewart Show, Larry King Live, The Discovery Channel's More than Human, and Nick at Nite. She's presently the voice on the new Gain detergent radio spot and the producer of this world record show.
Dave Farrow – Greatest Memory and Today's Foremost Expert on Memory (Guinness World Records)
The media calls him today's foremost memory expert. Dave Farrow, went from having two learning disabilities as a child to the current Guinness World Record holder for greatest memory. He memorized the exact order of 59 Decks of playing cards all shuffled together after seeing them only once. That's 3,068 cards in total! It represents the most difficult feat in memory in the world today. Dave was the first person in over 100 years to develop five new techniques for improving memory and has done over 2,500 media interviews. He's today's most sought after interviewee on memory.
Hula Hoop Harlot Melissa-Anne – 2 Hula Hoop Speed Records (Record Holders Republic / Believe the Unbelievable)
Hula Hoop Harlot Melissa-Anne is a world record holding New York City based performance artist specializing in the circus style of hula hooping. She is a self-taught professional hula hooper with a jazz and tap dance background. Melissa-Anne performs regularly at corporate parties, vaudeville, sideshow, circus and variety venues throughout the United States. Her records are for the most arms transfers through a hula-hoop in 30 seconds, (62) and the most one-foot spins with a hula-hoop, 133. She also performs as The Great Throwdini's Target Girl.
Scott Baker – Holds the World Record for the Most Continuous Sideshow Bally's, 150 back to back in over 6 hours while performing the Human Blockhead (Record Holders Republic/Believe the Unbelievable)
Scott Baker knows how to talk and talk and talk – for hours. He spoke continuously over 6 hours "barking" (technically known as a 'Talker' in sideshow parlance) outside show ballys at the Coney Island Sideshow. But if that wasn't enough, he did it while ramming an 8-inch screwdriver into his skull. Known as "The Twisted Shockmeister", Scott has starred on Broadway, in Las Vegas and in many feature films as well as national commercials. He has been awarded the "People's Choice" award in England, and can be seen eating light bulbs on National Geographic's "Humanly Impossible" show this coming season.
The Great Throwdini – The Worlds Fastest and Most Accurate Knife Thrower – (Guinness World Records). 25 World Records.
The World's Fastest and Most Accurate Knife Thrower performs MAXIMUM RISK – The Impalement Arts with a Touch of Magic and Comedy. See knifes, axes, tomahawks and machetes thrown with lightning speed and surgical precision around his partner, Target Girl Melissa-Anne.
Throwdini has set/broke 25 world records. He holds 'One of The Top 100 Guinness World Records of All Time' and appears in Ripley's Believe It or Not! for being the only person to catch a bullet, an arrow, and a knife. In a perilous display of precision he threw a 14″ knife through the ash of a lit cigarette held in his partner's mouth – just 2″ from her nose!
He is the recipient of one of magic's highest honors, the prestigious Merlin award, the 'Tony' of magic. Selected credits include: Late Night w Conan O'Brien, The Late Show w David Letterman, Good Morning America, ESPN, I've Got a Secret, America's Got Talent and History's Modern Marvels, and Stars of The World Famous Moscow State Circus.
TWO SPECIAL EVENTS TO TAKE PLACE!
Throwdini is the only knife thrower in the world performing The Veiled Wheel of Death. In the 70 years since first performed only 3 others have achieved, without question, the most difficult and dangerous of all knife stunts – hurling knives through a blank veil masking the spinning 'Wheel of Death' upon which is strapped a human target! In addition you'll see Throwdini attempt to break his own one-minute world record of 74 knives thrown to alternate sides of a human target – The Ladder of Death. This is something you don't' want to miss (nor does his target girl for matter!)
For ticket information call: Mike Slauenwhite 516-876-3979
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text:
Home Investment Loss
M7.3 earthquake hits eastern Indonesia
JAKARTA – The US Geological Survey says a magnitude-7.3 quake struck Indonesia on Sunday afternoon. The USGS says the focus of the quake was Halmahera Island, east of Sulawesi, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
Indonesian disaster management officials say there is no risk of tsunami, but they are checking if the quake has caused any damage.
No tsunami warning was issued.
The M7.3 quake struck about 165km south-southwest of the town of Ternate in North Maluku province at 6.28pm local time, at a depth of 10km, according to the USGS.
The province was also hit by a 6.9-magnitude tremor last week but no extensive damage was reported.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.
Last year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island killed more than 2,200 people with another thousand declared missing.
On Dec 26, 2004, a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including around 170,000 in Indonesia.


[S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume I, page 421.
From before 1407, her married name became Phelip.3 After her marriage, Joan Bardolf was styled as Baroness Bardolf on 13 November 1437.
[S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 62. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
[S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume I, page 420.
[S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 419. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
[S18] Matthew H.C.G., editor, Dictionary of National Biography on CD-ROM (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995), reference: "Bardolf, Thomas". Hereinafter cited as Dictionary of National Biography.
Heather Tonkin and Captain Mark Anthony Peter Phillips were associated.
[S466] Notices, The Telegraph, London, UK, 11 November 2007. Hereinafter cited as The Telegraph.


President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani in Aktau.
The successful development of relations in political, economic and other spheres was pointed out during the meeting. The sides emphasized the fact that the joint economic projects implemented by the two countries have yielded good results. The successful implementation of cooperation in energy, transport and infrastructure areas as well as on the North-South transport corridor was stressed.
The presidents highlighted the importance of the 5th Summit of the Heads of State of the Caspian littoral states held in Kazakhstan and the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, expressing their confidence that it will further enhance cooperation among the Caspian littoral states.
The sides exchanged views on bilateral relations and other issues of mutual interest.


The dates for the 2019 shows are March 13th through March 17th.
The Celtic Classic web site is maintained separately from Delaware County's, Lancaster County's & York County's web sites. Although we will make every effort to keep the information on this site as accurate as possible, please check the member sites or contact an authoritative member of a member club for verification of information listed here. The site host for The Celtic Classic is not responsible for any results of information listed on this site.


Evaluation of Service Performed: Not only did they do an excellent job of accurately and quickly solving our problems but they came in under their estimate. They determined the brake problem was actually something less expensive to fix than we thought. Very nice employees throughout. We were referred by Ford because they are an authorized warranty center...no one else in the area was available as quickly as they were.
Service Performed: Replaced anti-lock brake wheel sensor.
Evaluation of Service Performed: Work was performed in a timely, professional manner.


text:
NI firm ESF completes £600,000 Dubai Arena project
Dubai Arena
Newtownabbey-based firm Environmental Street Furniture (ESF) has completed their largest contract to date at the new state-of-the-art Dubai Arena, supplying a range of customised street furniture and security products in a deal worth £600,000.
Known for their award-winning exporting capabilities, which include some of the world's largest theme parks and government organisations, ESF supplied over 700 products to the project including bollards, benches, tree grates and litter bins.
"Dubai Arena has been ESF's largest project to date and we're delighted to have contributed to what is sure to be one of Dubai's most popular tourist attractions," said MD Alan Lowry.
"Having the opportunity to showcase our products to the millions of tourists, estimated to be 25 million per year by 2025, is a great achievement.
"We supplied a number of products, most of which were manufactured in Northern Ireland, including security bollards to go around the perimeter to ensure its protection as well as benches, litter bins and tree grates.
"A greater focus is being placed on perimeter security across the globe due to the increase of attacks, especially where large crowds gather, so it's important to ensure each product installed at the Dubai Arena is fit for purpose."
LIVE BLOG - The Open - DAY TWO:- There's just been another spectacular shot in Royal Portrush | Met Office issue weather warning for Northern Ireland | J.B. Holmes opens up two shot lead at -9


245 1 0 %a Market leader : %b upper intermediate business english : course book / %c David Cotton, David Falvey, Simon Kent.
250 %a 3rd ed., 7th impr.
260 %a Harlow : %b Pearson Education, %c 2015.
300 %a 175, s. : %b il. kolor. ; %c 30 cm + %e dysk optyczny DVD-ROM.
500 %a U dołu okł.: Financial Times.
538 %a Wymagania systemowe dla dokumentu towarzyszącego: Windows XP ; Vista/7 ; MacIntosh OSX 10.4 ; gnuLinEx/Ubuntu 8.10 ; 1 GHz Processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB Graphics card, 1024 x 768 Screen Resolution.


I promised I'd be posting more often on dpmcintire.com, and I'm committing to it. A few hours ago I acknowledged my mother's 90th birthday, but today's a birthday of a sorts for me as well.
On September 9, 1978, I watched the premiere of "WKRP in Cincinnati." After the program I immediately told my parents I was going into broadcasting as a career, and that someday, I'd run WKRP. They were encouraging in the same way you'd be if your 9 year old came to you and said, "Dad, I'm going to land on Neptune." But before the series finished its run on CBS? I was on the air, having lied about my age by 5 years to become a part-time announcer. At 17 and 18 I'd go straight from the studio to my high school classes, and over the next 17 years I'd learn how to do news, traffic, continuity, disc jockeying, program direction, sales, and even a little engineering – the last two weren't a good fit for me.
By 1995 it wasn't fun anymore. I cracked in the Raleigh market upon moving here, but I could make as much handling produce at the local grocery store. I needed frivolous things, like food. As much as I loved doing it? In early 1995 I gave it up, figuring my radio days were in my past. Turned out if was just the start of an interregnum.
The next 18 years were spend in various professions, the most satisfying of which was creating a non-profit group that organized and conducted softball, flag football, basketball and other teams and leagues. I still worked day jobs, but Capital Area Team Sports ("CATS") was my thing. In 2001 I set it up as a corporation (i.e., liability shield) after two of my players ran head first into one another chasing the same fly ball at a softball practice. As a demonstration to the players that I wasn't hustling them to make a dollar and divulged my salary ($1 / year) to anyone who asked. I organized it as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt group, just in case someone wanted to donate cash toward something. Finally I decided to step away from the day to day things (keeping the Executive Director title) and letting others run things while I pursued "What's next:" a floral and gift shop. I lost everything I had and most I could borrow within a year, finally deciding to close immediately after a Memorial Day weekend.
Unfortunately, what I spend 17 years building my successors tore down in a little under one. A membership of 257 on the day I left was now down to 5, counting me. The only reason I didn't shut it down upon returning full-time was that filing the paperwork to shut it down with the state cost $30… and at that moment, I didn't have $30 to waste. So, as it turns out to great luck, it stayed alive. Less than a year later, the FCC opened a "window" allowing 501(c)(3) tax exempt charitable corporations to apply for a broadcast license; a maximum output of 100 watts, but still, something.
That night the five of us talked and came to a decision: we would apply and see what happened. If it fell through (as I expected we would), it'll be because I screwed up somewhere in the engineering, and we'd each kick in $6 to shut CATS down for good. If the application was granted? We'd cross that bridge when we got to it.
I studied the applicable law and FCC regulations, did some cursory engineering, and determined we could apply for one of four frequencies – one (106.5) had the largest coverage area, and thus I figured it'd be the most sought after (so I excluded it). One, however, just so happened to be able to be built on land within a strip about a mile lone, but only 200′ wide… one that ran right through the back yard of my home. So we targeted that one, applied, and based on the information I had anticipated a two-year processing period. Four months later, we were called by the FCC, congratulating us on being awarded a construction permit and being asked if we had any call letter preference. Before I was to get to my serious inquiries, I jokingly asked, "Hey! Is WKRP available? Because that be cool if…" She stopped me with the response: It was released by a television station three days ago and is now available. Would you like it?
From there we built the station, piece by piece and as time (and funds) permitted. My original, pre-FCC filing goal was that, under optimal conditions, we could be on the air by January 1, 1996. We came in 32 days early. As you read this now, three years ago I was on the phone to my now 90-year old mother, holding the phone so she could hear the monitors; after which I said, "37 years, 2 months and 12 days ago I told you and Dad I'd someday run WKRP. Well Mom? I know you didn't expect me to, but in a way I fulfilled that promise.
Is There a Moral In This?
Yes. Never, ever give up on a dream. Because you may, at some point down the road, be able to fulfill it.