Re: Database Protection Paper

Paul Heald <heald[_at_]jd.lawsch.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Under Feist, the original arrangement, protection, and selection
> of your database is still protected. I'm unclear as to what else you
> claim should be protected. Certainly, not the raw facts collected--
> you don't ask to be able to enjoin someone from using a fact you have
> collected, do you? We skeptics would appreciate an example of just
> what Feist leaves unprotected that you claim to own. Thanks!

I think though that you really have to look at the word "original". One of the things that got started in Feist, but may have taken a life of its own is the determination of exactly what is original expression. In particular, I would suggest that many of the fields in most data bases would be filtered out under the CA v. Altai analysis. For example, in a database containing patents, such things as the patent title, inventors, assignee, abstract, class, subclass, patents it references, and patents that reference it, and I am sure a bunch of other fields are obvious, functional, etc. In otherwords, if you took a dozen programmers with the requisite experience, most would include just the same fields as you find in for example the Dialog patent databases. Maybe Dialog has a field or two that are unique. But if so, I can't remember it. The fields that I use would probably be in most any patent database.

My point here is that the Feist Court seemed to imply that if there had been even a smidgen of originality in the arrangement of the data in the white pages, then there may have been some protection. So, a lot of people seem to think that the exact fields selected in a database may be protected. My response is that I think that Altai type filtration would tend to knock out most of this.

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The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 1997 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
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Bruce E. Hayden                      bhayden[_at_]acm.org               
Austin, Texas                        bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com