The parties sought to agree the terms of a reference to the European Court of Justice. Judges: Arnold J Citations: [2010] EWHC 3012 (Ch), [2011] 2 CMLR 9, [2011] FSR 12, [2011] Eu LR 303 Links: Bailii Statutes: Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs Jurisdiction: England and … Continue reading SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd: ChD 22 Nov 2010

The court was asked as to the extent to which the developer of a computer program may lawfully replicate the functions of an existing computer program; and the materials that he may lawfully use for that purpose. SAS had produced a computer software language and system for statistical analysis, together with supporting manuals. The defendants … Continue reading SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd: CA 21 Nov 2013

The claimant alleged infringement by the defendant of assorted intellectual property rights in its database. It provided systems for recovering materials deleted from Nokia mobile phones. Held: ‘the present case is concerned with a collection of numerical data . . the individual items of data are not protected by copyright. It follows that the collection … Continue reading Forensic Telecommunications Services Ltd v West Yorkshire Police and Another: ChD 9 Nov 2011

The court considered the impact of the distinction drawn by Article 9(2) of TRIPS and Article 2 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty between ‘expressions’ and ‘ideas, procedures, methods of operation and mathematical concepts as such’ on domestic copyright law. Held: Arnold J said: ‘Skill, judgement and labour in devising ideas, procedures, methods of operation and … Continue reading SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd: ChD 23 Jul 2010