Reference for a preliminary ruling from Court of Appeal (England & Wales) (Civil Division) made on 21 December 2010 - Football Dataco Limited, Football Association Premier League Ltd, Football League Limited, Scottish Premier League Limited, Scottish Football League, PA Sport UK Limited v Yahoo UK Limited, Stan James (Abingdon) Limited, Stan James PLC, Enetpulse APS

(Case C-604/10)

Language of the case: English

Referring court

Court of Appeal (England & Wales) (Civil Division)

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicants: Football Dataco Limited, Football Association Premier League Ltd, Football League Limited, Scottish Premier League Limited, Scottish Football League, PA Sport UK Limited

Defendants: Yahoo UK Limited, Stan James (Abingdon) Limited, Stan James PLC, Enetpulse APS

Questions referred

In Article 3(1) of Directive 96/9/EC¹ on the legal protection of databases what is meant by "databases which, by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation" and in particular:

should the intellectual effort and skill of creating data be excluded?

does "selection or arrangement" include adding important significance to a pre-existing item of data (as in fixing the date of a football match);

does "author's own intellectual creation" require more than significant labour and skill from the author, if so what?

Does the Directive preclude national rights in the nature of copyright in databases other than those provided for by the Directive?

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¹ - Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases OJ L 77, p. 20