Data protection - Law database for sales agents

A Supreme Court ruling has led to new law governing sales agencies in the area of ​​database rights. In cases where a salesperson has built a database of customer data, which is now the owner of a database right in this database in case there is an agreement with another party such as the ownership of the database.

What this means in practice that it is now important to ensure that the agency or distribution agreements include the sale of any explicit right for the supplier information database (or parent), rather than relying on a general clause of IP assignment. He says:

"The maker of a database is the first owner of database right in it the applicant, if he tried to claim that the agent has been a freelance consultant and therefore could not have status." Creator "of the database - this was rejected by the court."

The case was decided with regard to the EC Database Directive and its implementation in the UK through the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997. The fact it was a sales agent for home insulation, the main product. The agent has sold the isolation of the principal to customers and used the principal's name and business cards, when to do it. The agent has also created a database of customers to whom he sold the isolation, however, the Dean then started to use this database to sell its other products.

Once the issue has entered into a dispute, the agent has issued a counterclaim for delivery of the database that claims to be the rightful owner of it.

"The court held that the agent had created a database of customers' names - were, after all, the client agent, and thus belonged to the database agent".

The case was pretty clear cut because there was an employment relationship, and there was no express agreement regarding ownership of intellectual property rights in the database. Consequently, the properties of the database right has been conferred the sales agent.

This means that the sales agents and distributors will be in a strong position at the end of the provision if the ownership of intellectual property rights, including the database right has not been made expressly stated in an agency or distribution agreement. This case is consistent with the lists of customers belonging to the agent, distributor or franchisee as part of their confidential information. Here there is a problem regarding the distinction between the right database and copyright of the contents of the database.

The case of William Hill drew a distinction between the rights in the database itself and the rights in the content and it is unclear whether the court has taken into account in deciding that the database (which presumably included the customer information contained in it), belongs to the agent of sale.

Comment: In the future, agency agreements and distribution will have to deal with the ownership of a customer list that the customer database as well as other intellectual property rights. Not many agents or distributors would give us their lists of customers. If not the principal / supplier may lose control of the customer database at the end, as well as pay compensation potential for the agent at the end to get the list .......