Admissibility of appeal and proof of software copyright ownership

22 May 2026

Court of Rome, 26 January 2026

The case arises from an interim action, seeking an order authorising a raid (so-called “Anton Piller order”) and an injunction, brought by an American software house against an Italian company that was using the former’s computer program without having acquired the necessary licenses. The Court of Rome granted both measures; however, the losing pary filed an appeal pursuant to Article 669-terdecies of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, claiming that the software house had not proven its ownership of the copyright over the software at issue.

The Court of Rome dismissed the appeal and established certain principles of great importance for the judicial enforcement of copyright.

Specifically, the Court ruled, in the first place, that an appeal against an interim order granting a raid is inadmissible, given that a raid is a preliminary evidence-gathering procedure and, pursuant to Article 695 c.p.c., orders granting such measures are not subject to appeal.

The Court further held that the presumption set forth in Article 8 of the Italian Copyright Statute, according to which “The author of a work is deemed to be, unless proven otherwise, whoever is indicated as such in the work, in the customary forms”, is also applicable in favour of legal entities, thereby rejecting the theory, supported by of part of the legal doctrine, according to which such presumption could be applicable only to natural persons.

Finally, it was established that copyright ownership over software can be invoked pursuant to Article 12-bis of the Italian Copyright Statute (“The employer owns the exclusive right of economic exploitation of the computer program or database created by the employee in the performance of his duties”) without the need to provide the name of the employee who developed the program, since the existence of the conditions for the application of the provision can be demonstrated through presumptions.

Overall, the position taken by the Court of Rome is, understandably, in favour of copyright holders. In particular, the interpretation of Articles 8 and 12-bis of the Italian Copyright Statute adopted by the Court will ease the burden for plaintiffs to provide evidence of copyright ownership, a burden which otherwise would risk making the protection of copyright ineffective.

Carmine Di Sanza