Posts Tagged ‘Copyright’

Copyright update: Hope of copyright clarification for computer programs

Friday July 30th 2010, by Piers Strickland

In a recent decision in the High Court, SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2010] EWHC 1829 (Ch), 23 July 2010, The Honourable Mr Justice Arnold made a reference to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning the extent to which certain elements are protectable by copyright as a computer program.

In particular, Arnold J considered that guidance from the ECJ was required as to what extent the following features were protectable by copyright:

  1. Programming languages.
  2. Interfaces.
  3. Functionality.

Arnold J concluded that the resolution of the case depended on a number of important issues surrounding the interpretation of Articles 1(2) and 5(3) of the Software Directive and Article 2(a) of the Information Society Directive, and that he should refer such issues to the ECJ.

COMMENT:  Despite making a reference to this ECJ, Arnold J expressed his own view in his judgment: i.e. that it should not be an infringement of the copyright that subsists in a computer program to replicate its functions without copying its source code or design.  This view is consistent with the previous decision of Navitaire Inc v Easyjet Airline Company and another [2004] EWHC 1725 (Ch). The outcome of this case should be carefully scrutinised by those software companies who wish to replicate certain aspects of software products already on the market.

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Copyright Law and Database Law Update – Football Fixtures Lists Protectable by Intellectual Property Rights

Tuesday June 15th 2010, by Piers Strickland

The High Court of England and Wales has recently held that English and Scottish football fixture lists are protected by database copyright.

The Judge in this important piece of copyright litigation held that pursuant to section 3A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which implements Article 3 of the European Database Directive (96/9/EC) (the “Directive”), that the process of preparing these football fixture lists involved very significant labour and skill, and was not merely the application of rigid criteria to the processing of data.  Accordingly, this meant that this “correct” kind of labour and skill (in qualitative and quantitative terms) qualified the fixtures lists for database copyright protection.

The Judge also held that the fixture lists were not protected by the sui generis right in the Directive (known as the “database right” in the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/3032)), as there had not been any substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the content of the lists, as opposed to creating them.

COMMENT

This decision will be welcomed by UK football organisations and other sporting bodies that compile their fixtures in a similar way to that of the English and Scottish football leagues. It will also cause concerns for those companies whose businesses rely on reproducing such fixtures lists.  Such companies should perhaps review the way in which they are reproducing football fixtures lists etc, to make sure they are not vulnerable to a claim of copyright infringement.

This case was specific to its facts and will not necessarily help all database owners.  The Judge was clear that it was the “correct” type of skill and effort which went into preparing the fixture lists which was crucial.  Not all databases will utilise this type of skill and labour and so might not benefit from database copyright in the same way.  Of course, this could mean that companies reproducing databases of different kinds (to football fixture lists) might be less at risk of infringing copyright and/or the database right.

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