British Horseracing Board Ltd v William Hill Organisation Ltd: PatC 9 Feb 2001

The defendants received data, prepared and distributed by the claimants, regarding horse races, and incorporated the information into their web pages as part of a betting service. There might have been other, indirect, ways of obtaining the same data, but in practice they would rely on data received by a third party from the claimant. The claimant asserted breach of its database rights. The right protected the data, not just the way it was organised. The Directive required only that a substantial part of the contents of the database should be copied. There was no need to show a direct derivation.

Judges:

Laddie J

Citations:

Times 23-Feb-2001, [2001] EWHC 517 (Patents)

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (1997 No 3032)

Cited by:

Appeal fromBritish Horseracing Board Ltd and Others v William Hill Organization Ltd CA 31-Jul-2001
The Board had established a database of information about horse racing. It was costly. The defendants recovered the information from a licensed user, and used it for its own business purposes. It was not suggested that the licensee had any right to . .
Appeal fromBritish Horseracing Board Ltd and Another v William Hill Organization Ltd CA 13-Jul-2005
The Court allowed William Hill’s appeal, holding that BHB had not established that the ECJ had given its earlier ruling on the basis of an erroneous assumption of fact and that the result of applying the ruling was that BHB’s Database did not fall . .
At First InstanceThe British Horseracing Board Ltd and Others v William Hill Organization Ltd ECJ 9-Nov-2004
bhb_whECJ2004
The claimant sought to prevent re-use by the defendant of information from its horse racing subscription service. They claimed that they had a database right in the information. It cost andpound;4m per year to assemble.
Held: The expression . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Intellectual Property

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.78629