Tutela e promozione dei marchi stranieri in Italia tra fine Ottocento e metà Novecento: carte d'archivio e nuove prospettive di ricerca

The present article investigates the provisions for the protection and promotion of foreign trademarks in the Italian legal system between the end of the Nineteenth and the first half of the Twentieth century, starting from the analysis of an extensive archival documentation, which has recently been digitized and made available online. The examination of archival documents falls within a regulatory framework, which ranges from the law n. 4577 enacted in August 1868 to the royal decree n. 929 approved in June 1942. The legislative development and the related legal debate, both from a national and international point of view, provide the essential frame of reference for understanding archival documents. In this broad prospective, it was decided to analyse a number of significant case studies, with special reference to the entrepreneurial choices and corporate strategies adopted by important Swedish companies to promote the development of their international trade between the end of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century.