Some maisons have built their empire on motifs made by
combining the initials of the founder's name or, more
generally, alphabetic letters. However, although the commercial
value of monograms is not questioned, they are still made of
letters of the alphabet.
Sometimes such letters are graphically elaborated in a way that
distinguishes them from the conventional version used in language,
but sometimes not. Hence, a question may arise: can monograms be
registered as trademarks?
First of all, the chance to register alphabetic letters as
trademarks was formally introduced into the Italian legal system
only with the enactment of Legislative Decree no. 480/1992 (in
implementation of Directive 89/104/ EEC). Despite this result, some
courts kept arguing that trademarks consisting of letters are weak,
so that even slight changes are sufficient to exclude infringement.
However, after the CJEU stated that alphabetic letters can be
registered as trademarks as long as they are
