Italian Government Says Carmaker Can’t Make Its “Milano” Vehicle Outside Of Italy

There seems to be something rather specific when it comes to the current Italian government when it comes to strong-arming commerce over a protective stance on Italian cultural touchstones. This has traditionally expressed itself mostly in the food and drinks categories of commerce. Wines are particularly of note here, with several recent examples of Italy and companies within it taking a very draconian view of what trademark laws allow it to do. But so too has the government been very protective when it comes to other products, such as cheeses and the like.

But I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting the Italian government to start a fight with a car manufacturer branding one of its cars “Milano” simply because the cars aren’t made in Milan.

Stellantis-owned Alfa Romeo, a brand steeped in Italian automotive history, unveiled on Wednesday its new Milano small SUV, named after the iconic northern Italian city of Milan, where Alfa Romeo was founded in 1910. The car is being built at the Tychy plant in Poland, and is the first Alfa Romeo model entirely produced outside Italy.

“A car called Milano cannot be produced in Poland. This is forbidden by Italian law,” Adolfo Urso said in Turin, referring to 2003 legislation that targets “Italian sounding” products that falsely claim to be Italian. “This law stipulates that you cannot give indications that mislead consumers. So a car called Milano must be produced in Italy. Otherwise, it gives a misleading indication which is not allowed under Italian law,” Urso said.

Let’s be very clear about what is going on here, because it has nothing to do with the public being misled. The Italian government and Alfa Romeo have been in an ongoing and fairly public battle about job creation within the country and over where the company is making its cars. In other words, it is plainly obvious that the government is trying to deploy this angle of the brand name violating Italian law purely as a pain-tactic as part of of that battle.

Because the fact is that the law being referenced here is all about public confusion, as any good trademark law should be. And nobody is going to convince me that simply by having a name that is an homage to the carmaker’s Italian heritage is somehow the same as positioning that the cars are made in Italy.

The law mentioned by Urso says it is illegal to present a foreign-made product as coming from Italy. Typically, it has been invoked against food products, for example U.S.-made “parmesan” cheese resembling Italy’s “parmigiano”.

To be clear, there haven’t been any other accusations I can find that the company is “presenting” the car as being made in Italy beyond the brand name. And for any sane trademark law and/or ruling, that simply isn’t enough to constitute trademark infringement.

But Italy is going through it’s own nationalistic push. In situations like this, the equitable enforcement of reasonable laws often times goes out the window.