Protection of ceramic design: agreement between Acimac and Confindustria Ceramica

Acimac (Italian Ceramic Machinery and Equipment Manufacturers' Association) and Confindustria Ceramica (Association of Italian manufacturers of ceramic tiles, refractories, sanitaryware, tableware and industrial ceramics) signed a memorandum of understanding on 21 May to protect the confidentiality and originality of ceramic design. The agreement is to be adopted by all member companies.
This is the first agreement between customers and suppliers on such a strategic issue.

For Italian tile producers, protection of intellectual property and the design content of ceramic products is an increasingly important value and a key competitive advantage in both the Italian and international markets.
Particularly in view of the rapid diffusion of digital decoration technologies and the consequent digitalisation of design projects, the risks associated with greater ease of access make it essential to introduce more stringent regulation so as to protect both the design firms supplying the projects and their ceramic company clients.

In accordance with the agreement signed by Paolo Gambuli, director-general of Acimac, and Armando Cafiero, director-general of Confindustria Ceramica, the companies belonging to Acimac's "Ceramic Design Firm" group undertake to handle with the utmost confidentiality the graphic design projects and relevant files produced for customer ceramic companies and to prohibit all unauthorised reproduction or manipulation. This may involve adopting special internal procedures to prevent access to graphic design projects on the part of employees, associates, sub-contractors, etc. They therefore undertake to assure their ceramic company clients the exclusivity of the supplied graphic design project and to guarantee the maximum confidentiality of all information of a technical and non-technical nature received from the client.

Ceramic companies belonging to Confindustria Ceramica in turn undertake to guarantee the utmost confidentiality of all information they receive from the design firm and not to disclose or record the projects/products provided for viewing by the ceramic design firms. 

The chairmen of the two trade associations expressed their satisfaction with the agreement. "Imitation in the sector has long been widespread and to some extent tolerated," said Confindustria Ceramica chairman Franco Manfredini, "but today the technology is more sophisticated and protection of creativity is needed."  "The agreement offers safeguards for everyone and is one of the first cases in which customers and suppliers have worked together in this way," added ACIMAC chairman Fabio Tarozzi.

The agreement marks a revolutionary approach to protecting all parties' interests and will help to combat the problem of imitation and fakes that have penalised Italy's entire manufacturing industry. From now on it will be much more difficult for professional counterfeiters to reproduce the work of Italian companies' graphic design departments.