Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy pursuant to Articles 13 and 14 of Regulation 679/2016 (GDPR)

Collegio Italiano dei Consulenti in Proprietà Industriale, located at Via Giovanni Battista Viotti 9, 10121 Turin (hereinafter “Collegio”), is constantly committed to protecting the online privacy of users of its website https://it.ficpi.org/ (the “Website”) and of those who submit or have submitted applications for membership (“Members”). This document (the “Notice”) has been prepared pursuant to Articles 13 and 14 of EU Regulation 2016/679 (hereinafter the “Regulation”) to enable you to understand how your personal data, as defined below, will be processed and to provide you with the information necessary for you to express your explicit and informed consent to the processing carried out through the Website and as part of your membership registration or membership application (“Membership”).

In general, any information or personal data you provide to Collegio through the Website or through Registration, or that is otherwise collected through the Website, as part of using the services offered by Collegio (the “Services”), such as receiving organizational or institutional emails, better defined in the following Paragraph 3, will be processed in accordance with internationally recognized principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose and retention limitation, data minimization, accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality.

This information is addressed to users of the Website and to Members.

1. Data controller 

Collegio, as identified at the beginning of this Policy, is the data controller for all personal data, as better defined in Paragraph 2, processed through the Website or as a result of Registration.

2. The personal data subject to processing

As you navigate the Website and register, Collegio will process your Personal Data, which may consist of an identifier such as your email address, name, an online identifier such as your IP address, or one or more identifiable identifiers (hereinafter “Personal Data”).

The Personal Data processed through the Website or as a result of Registration are the following:

a. Name, contact details and other Personal Data

When applying for membership through the Website section https://it.ficpi.org/how-to-join/, you will be asked to provide information such as your name, surname, title, professional address, telephone number, and email address. The same applies when you communicate with Collegio through the contact information found on the Website or when browsing it, through which Collegio may collect any additional information you choose to provide, such as your IP address.

b. Special categories of Personal Data

Collegio does not need to process any special categories of Personal Data, i.e., Personal Data pursuant to Article 9 of the Regulation (“[…] personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation”).

These special categories of Personal Data may be processed only with your explicit consent and in compliance with applicable law. Should you deem it necessary to provide such data to Collegio, the latter emphasizes the importance of providing your explicit consent to the processing of these special categories of Personal Data.

c. Personal Data of third parties provided voluntarily by the interested party

When using the Website or completing the application, Collegio may process the Personal Data of third parties you provide to Collegio, such as entering an email address for organizational communications or entering the names of two members of Collegio who have been members of Collegio for at least 5 years. In such cases, you act as an independent data controller, assuming all legal obligations and responsibilities. In this regard, you hereby fully indemnify Collegio against any complaints, claims, requests for compensation for damages resulting from processing, etc., that may be received from third parties whose Personal Data has been processed through your use of the Website’s functions in violation of applicable data protection laws. In any case, if you provide or otherwise process third-party Personal Data while using the Website or enrolling, you hereby warrant—and assume all related liability—that such processing is based on an appropriate legal basis that legitimises the processing of the information in question.

d. Personal data collected or verified from third parties

Collegio may collect and/or verify the Personal Data of the Interested Party with third parties for the purposes of verifying the requirements for Membership (see Articles 3, 11, and 12 of the Statute) and/or permanence (see Article 17 of the Statute), the proper maintenance of the membership list, and more generally for the purpose of fulfilling the purposes that Collegio intends to pursue for its Members.

e. Browsing data

The computer systems and software procedures used to operate the Website acquire, during their normal operation, some Personal Data whose transmission is implicit in the use of Internet communication protocols. This information is not collected to be associated with identified data subjects, but by its very nature could, through processing and association with data held by third parties, allow users to be identified. This category of data includes the IP addresses or domain names of computers used by users connecting to the Website, the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) addresses of requested resources, the time of the request, the method used to submit the request to the server, the size of the file obtained in response, the numerical code indicating the status of the response from the server (successful, error, etc.), and other parameters relating to the user’s operating system and IT environment. This data is used solely to obtain anonymous statistical information on the use of the Website and to monitor its proper functioning, identify anomalies and/or abuse, and is deleted immediately after processing. The data could be used to ascertain responsibility in the event of hypothetical computer crimes against the Website or third parties.

3. Purpose of the processing

Collegio will use your Personal Data for the following purposes:

• providing services that fall within the purposes of Collegio as fully indicated in Article 2 of the Statute and at the page https://it.ficpi.org/activities/, or more generally those of an organizational and management nature envisaged as a consequence of membership in Collegio, as described in the Statute, including, by way of example and not limited to: (i) receiving and verifying the membership requirements for the acceptance of the membership application; (ii) convening the assembly and verifying its regular constitution; (iii) verifying the validity of resolutions; (iv) verifying compliance with the rules of conduct set forth in the Statute; (v) imposing disciplinary measures following violations of the rules of conduct (“Institutional Obligations”).

• sending of organizational and institutional communications via email and/or paper, including those relating to training events organized by Collegio for the benefit of its Members; (“Information Services”);

• complying with any legal obligations that require Collegio to collect and/or further process certain types of Personal Data (“Compliance”);

• making available on the Website some of your Personal Data contained in the list of members at the page https://ficpi.org/user-search?field_country=110 or at the page https://it.ficpi.org/council/ dedicated to the Council (“Dissemination”);

• communicating your Personal Data, enter your registration to the FICPI (Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Intellectuelle) so that you can also be registered with this association, to which Collegio belongs, which is included in the membership fee. (“International Membership”)

4. Legal basis and mandatory or optional nature of the processing

The legal bases used by Collegio to process your Personal Data, according to the purposes indicated in the previous Paragraph 3, are as follows:

• Institutional Compliance, Information Services, and International Registration: The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6(1)(b) of the Regulation (“[…] processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract”). Providing Personal Data for these purposes is optional, but without it, it will not be possible to provide the Services.

• Compliance: The processing of Personal Data for this purpose is necessary to fulfil the tasks assigned to Collegio and its Council pursuant to applicable law. This processing is based on Art. 6(1)(c) of the Regulation (“[…] processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject”). When you provide Personal Data to Collegio, it must be processed in accordance with applicable law, which may involve retaining it and disclosing it to the Authorities for accounting, tax, or other compliance purposes.

• Disclosure: The processing of Members’ Personal Data is based on their consent pursuant to art. 6(1)(a) of the Regulation (“the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes”).

Providing Personal Data for the purposes indicated above is optional, but without it, Collegio will not be able to process your Registration and/or provide the Services or fulfil the obligations indicated above.

5. Recipients of Personal Data

Your Personal Data may be shared with the parties listed below (the “Recipients”):

1. subjects that typically act as data controllers, namely: individuals, companies, or professional firms that provide assistance and consultancy to Collegio in accounting, administrative, legal, tax, and financial matters relating to Institutional Obligations; hosting providers or suppliers of email platforms, and subjects delegated to carry out technical maintenance activities (including maintenance of network equipment and electronic communications networks);

2. persons authorized by Collegio to process Personal Data necessary to carry out activities strictly related to institutional obligations, who have undertaken to maintain confidentiality or have an adequate legal obligation of confidentiality;

3. FICPI (Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Intellectuelle) for the purpose of International Registration. FICPI is an association of which Collegio is a member, which acts as an independent data controller and for which reference is made to the respective privacy policy.

4. subjects, entities or Authorities to whom it is mandatory to communicate your Personal Data for Compliance purposes.

Some of your Personal Data – such as your name, surname, title, professional address, telephone and electronic contact details – will be made available on Collegio’s Website for the purpose of Dissemination if you have consented.

6. Transfers of personal data

Collegio does not share your data with Recipients who may be located outside the European Economic Area.

7. Retention of Personal Data

Personal Data processed for the purposes of Institutional Compliance, Information Services, and International Registration will be retained for the time strictly necessary for the aforementioned purposes, and therefore until the date on which you are certified as a Member. For retention periods relating to International Registration, please refer to the privacy policy of FICPI, which acts as the independent data controller.

Personal Data processed for Compliance purposes will be retained by Collegio for the time strictly necessary for the aforementioned purpose and as required by applicable law. In any case, Collegio may retain such data for a longer period, particularly for as long as necessary to protect the interests of Collegio from potential complaints regarding the services provided and for the period permitted by Italian law to protect its own interests (ten years pursuant to Article 2946 et seq. of the Italian Civil Code).

Personal Data processed for the purposes of Dissemination will be retained by Collegio until you are identified as a Member or, in any case, until you withdraw your consent. Once your Membership ends (e.g., warning, expulsion), Collegio will no longer use your Personal Data for these purposes, but may still retain it, particularly as may be necessary to protect Collegio’s interests from potential complaints based on such processing and, in any case, for compliance purposes.

8. Rights of the interested party

You have the right to ask Collegio, at any time:

1. access to your Personal Data (or a copy of such Personal Data), as well as further information on the processing being carried out on them;

2. the rectification or updating of your Personal Data processed by Collegio, where they are incomplete or out of date;

3. the deletion of your Personal Data from Collegio’s databases;

4. the limitation of the processing of your Personal Data by Collegio;

5. to obtain the Personal Data concerning you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. The format chosen by Collegio is Office “.xls ”.

In addition to the above, you can also exercise your rights by writing to Collegio at the following address: [email protected].

In any case, you always have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent Supervisory Authority (Data Protection Authority) if you believe that the processing of your Personal Data violates applicable law.

9. Changes

This privacy policy is effective as of March 4, 2019. Collegio reserves the right to modify or simply update its content, in part or in full, including due to changes in applicable legislation. Collegio will inform you of such changes as soon as they are introduced, and they will be binding upon publication on its website. Collegio therefore invites you to visit this section regularly to review the most recent and updated version of the privacy policy, so you can stay informed about the data collected and how Collegio uses it.