Thorogood Reports Series Read Description

The Legal Protection of Databases

Spiral bound
May 2001
9781854182456
More details
  • Publisher
    THO
  • Published
    31st May 2001
  • ISBN 9781854182456
  • Language English
  • Pages 135 pp.
  • Size 8.25" x 11.75"
$185.00

Inventions can be patented, knowledge can be protected through the law of trade secrets, but information itself? The form or medium of information can be protected by copyright but information itself is more difficult. It cannot be owned. So how can the law effectively protect it?

Both the law - and hence the commercial realities - remain uncertain. Professional advisers must at least be fully up to speed with what the law currently says [and doesn't say] and what the implications are.

This Special Report examines the current EU [and so EEA] law on the legal protection of databases, including the sui generis right established when the European Union adopted its Directive 96/9/EC in 1996.

Why protect databases?
European Union law and policy in relation to the legal protection of databases
UK legal protection of databases
International instruments and proposals for the legal protection of databases
Other forms of legal protection for databases
Conclusions

Simon Chalton

Simon Chalton is a solicitor and a consultant to Bird & Bird, a City of London law firm with special interests in computer law. His experience with computers and the law relating to IT goes back to the late 1960s. His experience as included advisiong on computer and software contracts, software licensing and software protection, computer-related disputes and data protection. He has held office as Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee of the British Computer Society, Chairman of the National Computing Centre's Legal Group and Chairman of the International Bar Association's Computer and Database Committee.