The English High Court's recent decision in Executive Grapevine v Wall provides another example of claimants making good use of database right in order to protect their IPRs.
The subject matter of the case was a detailed database of email addresses and business contact information compiled by the claimant, with some 60,000 entries. As is so often the case in this type of litigation, the principal defendant (Mr Wall) was an ex-employee who, after his employment ended, accessed the database without its owner's permission. Even worse, he then proceeded to offer it for sale on eBay - not perhaps the cleverest tactic. And, to complete the circle, the parties who purchased the database from him then unwittingly offered to sell it back to the claimant!
Executive Grapevine sued all parties involved in these dubious transactions. The court, too, took a dim view of the defendants' behaviour. Ruling firstly that the database was clearly protected under the Copyright and Rights in Database Regulations 1997 (the "Regulations"), it then had no difficulty in finding that Mr Wall's unauthorised access had infringed the database right, brushing aside his attempted defence that he had not intended the database to be so widely circulated. And it went further, for it then held that the purchasers' activities made them, too, liable, even though offering a database for sale is not expressly listed as an infringing act in the Regulations – a judicial expansion of their scope, perhaps? The purchasers' protestations that they were unaware of the existence of the IPR cut little ice with the judge, who reminded all concerned that, whilst it may affect the measure of damages, innocence is no defence to a claim of database right infringement.
In summary, the case demonstrates how valuable a weapon database right can be in one's IPR arsenal...and how ready the courts are to crack down on those who infringe it.
Executive Grapevine International Limited v Wall et al [2012] EWHC 4152 (Ch)
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