Michele Tullio

Elio De Tullio is a lawyer and trademark attorney specialized in Intellectual Property, with 20 years’ experience in assisting SMEs for the protection and exploitation of their intellectual property rights at international level.

After 10 years of experience in IP matters, he founded in 2005 the IP tech-law firm De Tullio & Partners, with offices in Rome and Bari and a liaison office in New York. Managing Partner of De Tullio & Partners, he acts as trade mark attorney in the strategic assessment of IP protection, including prosecution and opposition proceedings at domestic and international level. He is also a litigation lawyer before the Italian Courts specialized in Intellectual Property. He is expert in preparation of exploitation plans and licensing schemes of IPRs, in order to facilitate export and access to finance of SMEs.

He cooperates as an expert with EUIPO in Expert Groups (ECP6 – Supporting SMEs), EU Observatory Expert Groups (SMEs, Legal) and Working Groups (Enforcement). He cooperates as an expert with Italian Ministries (Foreign Affairs, Economic Development, Agriculture), European Commission (in particular, EASME as Coach of SME Instrument) and WIPO (SME Division). Since 2013 he is one of the experts of the EU-China and the EU-South East Asia IPR SME Helpdesks. He is also expert and lecturer of the Italian Trade Agency (ICE-ITA).

Since 2015 he is Board Member of the International Network for Small and Medium Enterprises (INSME) and since 2018 he is President of the IP Commission of ICC Italian Chapter. He is member of different bodies and associations, among which INTA (as former Chair of the Geographical Indications Committee and Chair of the EUIPO EU Observatory Joint Task Force), ECTA (member of the SMEs Task Force), AIPPI (Co-Chair of the International Geographical Indications Standing Committee), ALAI, oriGIn (member of the Legal Group), INDICAM. In 2018-2019 he actively participated to the INTA “Presidential Task Force on SMEs”.

Since 2006 he is adjunct professor of intellectual property and legal informatics at the master course in Legal Informatics of University La Sapienza – Faculty of Philosophy of Law (Rome). Since 2019 he is adjunct professor of Intellectual Property at two Master Courses of LUISS University (Business School): Fashion Law and Digital Marketing. As adjunct professor, he also cooperated with Bocconi University (Milan), Politecnico of Milan, University of Bari, Politecnico of Bari, Ca’ Foscari University (Venice) and Universitas Mercatorum.

He participated - as coordinator and IP Law Expert - to the following EUIPO EU Observatory studies published in 2023 "Study on EU Member States’ potential for protecting craft and industrial (CI) Geographical Indications" and in 2017-2018: “Study on “The Baseline of Trade Secrets Litigation in the EU” and “Study on protection and control of Geographical Indications for agricultural products in the EU Member States“.

He is also author of several publications and articles on Intellectual Property, also translated into foreign languages (Chinese, Russian).