About

Felix Hofer is a lawyer based in Firenze, Italy, who has been providing his services in litigation and counselling to clients both, on a national as well as on an international level, for over forty years. Since 1990, his professional focus concentrates on regulatory developments in national law and EU regulations in areas such as: commercial communication (specifically advertising, marketing, sales promotion campaigns), intellectual property, data protection and privacy issues. Associations, Conferences and Publications: Felix is a member of the Italian Section of AIPPI and of the NYC Bar Association, a former member of ICC and of ITechLaw. He is a founding member of the European Advertising Lawyers’ Association – EALA (1989) and - later on (2000) - of the Global Advertising Lawyers’ Alliance – GALA (where he was the country representative for Italy until 2018 and is now serving as an Emeritus Member). He authored articles on legal issues related to his focus areas and performed as a speaker at conferences in Europe and in the United States. Appearances include events of the Association of National Advertisers - ANA, BAA, the European Academy of Law, JupiterEvents, IAPP, American Conference Institute, ITechLaw, AIPPI, Franklin Pierce Law Center. After leaving his law firm at the end of 2018, Felix continues to keep himself up to date in his areas of interest. Felix is fluent in English, German and Italian.

About ADRegNews - The project

In decades of legal practice, I have developed a sound knowledge about topics in the key areas this Blog focuses on. I have also learned the importance of not just analyzing issues, but of sharing information and professional experiences. With this take away in mind, I have set up “AdRegulationNews” as an on-line place to go to for a quick glimpse on recent EU or national case-law as well as on new Regulations relevant in relation to the topics I am particularly interested in. Commercial communication is currently undergoing a radical transformation, as digital techniques and media are - deeply and constantly - changing the traditional ways through which advertisers interact with their targeted public. Intellectual Property rights nowadays tend to outrank in significance a corporation’s material assets (as it appears from the increasing number of lawsuits focusing on such aspects). Hence, on one side, corporations have become aware of the importance of strongly defending such rights against competitors and ‘bad guys’. On the other side, the need for dedicated Courts (or Court sections) and for practitioners specializing in the legal implications involved seems to be obvious. Protection of Personal Data is no longer a domain reserved to “privacy geeks” but has surged to a topic all businesses are confronted on a daily basis worldwide. Just think of profiling, monitoring or geo-location techniques, of wearable devices, of home automation, of artificial intelligence, of driver-less cars, to realize not only the exciting benefit of technical progress, but also how deeply all this impacts on our private sphere. Challenging and interesting times are ahead of us: so, let’s get ready and talk about some of the issues on the horizon.