Giulia Maienza
Giulia Maienza is a Senior Associate in the Intellectual Property department at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, based in London and previously Milan. With over seven years of experience, Giulia specialises in contentious and non-contentious IP matters, advising international client, particularly in the TMT, fashion, consumer goods, and food sectors, on complex disputes involving patents, trademarks, GIs and designs across Italian, UK, and pan-European courts. Giulia’s expertise extends to transactional and strategic IP work, including licensing, technology transfer, and IP assignment agreements, as well as regulatory and privacy issues.
She has played a key role in high-profile cases, such as leading trademark disputes for global sportswear brands, developing global IP strategies for major tobacco companies, and advising on cross-border design infringement and complex business reorganisations. Giulia has earned accolades such as the Europe Women Rising Star 2025 (Law.com), INTA Tomorrow’s Leader Award 2021, and Rising Star – IP Stars 2024. She has wrote a number of articles for several magazines including JIPLP, Agenda Digitale, Wired, WTR.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 2019
Experience
- Simmons and Simmons (2016 - 2017)
Membership
- AIPPI
- INTA
- INDICAM
- CHIPS
Qualifications
- LLM IP (2021)
- Bachelor (2016)
Education
- LLM WIPO and University of Turin (2021)
- University of Milan (2016)
1 Contributions by Giulia Maienza
PRACTICE NOTES
EU geographical indications (PDO/PGI): international framework, 2024/1143 reforms, regimes for wine, spirits, agricultural and craft/industrial products, registration and opposition, enforcement, trade mark interplay, and the Geneva Act
This Practice Note provides a concise overview of the legal safeguards available for geographical indications (GIs) and designations of origin, including appellations of origin, protected designations of origin (PDOs) and protected GIs (PGIs) under international and EU law. It explains the global framework grounded in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), alongside the protection afforded by EU regulations, with particular focus on the regimes applied to different product categories. It also outlines the enforcement routes open to rights holders, and finally reviews how appellations of origin, PDOs and PGIs interface with trade mark law. For guidance on GI protection under UK law, see Practice Note: Protection of geographical indications—UK.
International protection of geographical indications
Protection of GIs has been achieved through a range of mechanisms dating back to the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. The Paris Convention recognised three distinct safeguards connected to a product’s provenance:
indications of source — these denote the geographical place where products originate but...
EU Law
If you expected to see yourself on this page, click here.
