Database protection in Argentina

There are criminal sanctions attached. I get worked up about the offences that have been bolted onto our IP laws, but they don't come close to this. Perhaps some businesses would like them to.

According to a newsletter from Marval O'Farrell & Mairal, a recent case was brought by a corporate event planning company against two former employees who had made off with the database and set up in competition. This database, among other things, contained the distilled wisdom and experience of the organisation on how to organise such events. The Court of First Instance indicted both defendants on charges of intellectual property fraud, pursuant to Section 71 of Intellectual Property Law No.11,723 (which covers databases by virtue of Law No. 25,036). They appealed, arguing that they were only re-using ideas not expression, but the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court. This database, far from being a mere compilation of information, was the result of careful data selection and classification, designed to support a specific working methodology, tailored to the specific needs of a particular company.

Intellectual property fraud. A concept to conjure with.