Database right

1. What database right is

Under Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases, and the equivalent provisions of UK law, a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of a database gives rise to a sui generis right in that database. It is separate from copyright and from any right in the individual facts.

2. What it protects here

Substantial investment has been made, and continues to be made, in obtaining, verifying and presenting the contents of the register. The investment lies in the obtaining, verification and presentation of the contents. The register is therefore protected as a whole, regardless of whether any individual entry is itself original.

3. What is prohibited

• Extraction — the permanent or temporary transfer of all or a substantial part of the contents to another medium, by any means and in any form.
• Re-utilisation — making all or a substantial part of the contents available to the public by distribution, rental, transmission, or making it accessible online.
• Repeated and systematic extraction or re-utilisation of insubstantial parts, where that conflicts with the normal exploitation of the database or unreasonably prejudices our interests.

These prohibitions apply whether the contents are taken from the register directly, or obtained indirectly from a copy of it.

4. How extraction is detected

The register is delivered server-rendered only, with no export function, no bulk endpoint and no machine-readable feed. Access is limited to verified members, capped, and logged. Every page served carries an invisible, account-specific marker that survives copying, and the register contains planted records that exist nowhere else. If a planted record appears in a third party's data, that is proof of extraction, and the account that was served the page can be identified.

5. Contractual protection

Independent of database right, every member agrees in the terms of membership not to extract or re-utilise the register. Breach is a breach of contract as well as an infringement of database right.

6. Enforcement

We will pursue infringement, including against those who commission or receive an extracted copy. This includes injunctive relief and a claim for damages or an account of profits, and costs.

7. What we do not claim

We do not claim any right in the underlying facts themselves, and nothing here prevents anyone independently compiling information about industrial property from lawful sources. The right protects our investment in this compilation — not the idea of a register.

8. Contact

To report suspected extraction, or to ask about licensing data, write to legal@europeanindustrial.org.