Technomed v. Bluecrest: UK High Court indicates broad scope of the database right
Published on 28th Nov 2017
The following article appeared in Leading Internet Case Law, and was written by Abby Minns, Osborne Clarke.
This case saw the UK High Court indicate a broad scope for the sui generis database right (the ‘Database Right’) found within the EU Database Directive 96/9/EC, which rightsholders have found difficult to assert against a third party in light of numerous Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) decisions in this area. The High Court found that a PDF of a document can be considered a database and thus the information contained can be protected by the Database Right, in a decision that may lead to more rightsholders utilising the Database Right against third parties who make unauthorised use of their databases.
