ECJ The term database as defined in Article 1(2) of Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases refers to any collection of works, data or other materials, separable from one another without the value of their contents being affected, including a method or system of some sort for the retrieval of each of its constituent materials.
A fixture list for a football league such as that at issue in the case in the main proceedings constitutes a database within the meaning of Article 1(2) of Directive 96/9.
The expression ‘investment in . . the obtaining . . of the contents’ of a database in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9 must be understood to refer to the resources used to seek out existing independent materials and collect them in the database. It does not cover the resources used for the creation of materials which make up the contents of a database. In the context of drawing up a fixture list for the purpose of organising football league fixtures, therefore, it does not cover the resources used to establish the dates, times and the team pairings for the various matches in the league.
Citations:
[2005] 1 CMLR 16, [2004] EUECJ C-444/02, C-444/02, [2004] ECR I-10549
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Cited by:
Cited – Apis-Hristovich v Lakorda AD (Approximation Of Laws) ECJ 5-Mar-2009
apishristovichECJ2009
Europa Directive 96/9/EC Legal protection of databases – Sui generis right – Obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents of a database – Extraction – Substantial part of the contents of a database – . .
Cited – Football Dataco Ltd and Others v Yahoo! UK Ltd and Others CA 9-Dec-2010
The claimants asserted ownership of copyright in football fixture lists as a database right. The defendant denied that they attracted any such right. The judge had found that significant skill and labour went into the preparation of the list.
Cited – Forensic Telecommunications Services Ltd v West Yorkshire Police and Another ChD 9-Nov-2011
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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
European, Intellectual property
Updated: 04 July 2022; Ref: scu.233160