Legislative Decree No. 179 of October 7, 2026, expressly included AI training data and algorithms within the concept of trade secret. To understand the scope of the new regulation, it is helpful to review its key features.
Under Italian law, trade secrets are subject to a two-tiered system of protection.
First, they are protected under the rules governing unfair competition, which apply only to individuals who qualify as business owners and who are in a competitive relationship with one another. The misappropriation by an entrepreneur of trade secrets belonging to a competitor’s business therefore constitutes an act of unfair competition under Article 2598, paragraph 3, of the Civil Code, as it is an act inconsistent with the principles of professional integrity and capable of causing harm to another’s business.
In accordance with Directive (EU) 2016/943 of June 8, 2016, on the protection of confidential know-how and confidential business information (trade secrets), trade secrets are also protected by Article 98 of the Industrial Property Code (CPI: Legislative Decree No. 30 of February 10, 2005), which grants the holder who has legitimate control over such information the right to prohibit third parties from acquiring, disclosing, or misusing business information and technical-industrial know-how, regardless of whether a competitive relationship exists. This concept encompasses not only information of a technological nature (i.e., information that is theoretically patentable) but also commercial know-how (such as, for example, customer lists and marketing techniques).
The protection provided by the Italian Industrial Property Code (CPI) is contingent upon the information being secret (that is, not known or readily accessible to those skilled in the art), having commercial value by virtue of its secrecy (that is, providing a competitive advantage to its holder), and being subject to reasonably adequate measures to maintain its secrecy. This last assessment must be made on a case-by-case basis (the adequacy of a password, for example, may or may not be considered sufficient depending on the type of information being protected).
Legislative Decree No. 179 of October 7, 2026, amended Article 98 of the Italian Industrial Property Code (CPI) by expressly including, among the protectable business information and technical-industrial know-how, data, algorithms, and mathematical methods used to train artificial intelligence systems, provided that the conditions set forth by the law for the protection of trade secrets are met. The decree further specified that, for the purposes of training AI systems, “algorithms and mathematical methods” refer to model architectures, optimization functions, training procedures and configurations, as well as any other technical and computational elements essential to the development of AI systems.
This extension of the trade secret framework was not expressly provided for in EU Regulation 2024/1689 (AI Act), but the Italian Artificial Intelligence Act (Law No. 132 of September 23, 2025) nevertheless authorized the Government to adopt protective measures for the data, algorithms, and mathematical methods used for training.
At present, given that data used for these purposes may be protected under the same conditions as those applicable to business information in general (for which, incidentally, the CPI does not provide any illustrative list), the expansion introduced by the provision may have more apparent than actual scope. It will therefore be interesting to see how national courts will apply the amended Article 98 of the CPI.
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