With decision n. 11163 dated 9 May 2018 the Supreme Court has confirmed two important principles as a corollary to the rule provided in articles 12bis, 12ter and 88 of the copyright law for some categories of works protected by copyright (computer programs and data bases, works of industrial design, photographs).As for inventions and models (articles 64 and 86.2 of the IP law), for these kinds of categories of works protected by copyright unless otherwise agreed the right deriving from the creation belonging to the employer.The present case concerns a software and the very recent decision by the Supreme Court define precisely the requirements to be ascertained in the case of a dispute, ruling that ‘for the purpose of attributing to the employee, instead of the employer, the property rights of his creative work protected by copyright it has to carefully verified if there is a strict causal link between the activity due by the employee and the creation realized, ascertaining whether or not this represents the programmed outcome of the former’.Specifying further that ‘it is the employee who must prove that the work created falls outside his duties, was created outside the working hours and not in the work place, and without the use of instruments, documents and structures of research and communication belonging to the employer’.