Issue Involved:
How can a company assert its data rights?
Mengchun’s Comments:
- Data Registration: Conduct date registration with the relevant data authorities, such as Shanghai Data Exchange. The said data registration serves as preliminary evidence of data rights.
- Evidence Collection: Collect evidence demonstrating company’s investment in the collection and processing of the date.
Summary of the Court’s Judgment
In the landmark case, the Beijing IP court ruled on the legal standing of the Datatang company’s “Data Intellectual Property Registration Certificate” as preliminary evidence of proprietary interests in a dataset. The court also recognized the certificate as preliminary evidence that Datatang’s data collection activities and data sources were lawful. In the absence of contrary evidence, the registration certificate could establish these facts.
Despite the dataset not qualifying as a trade secret due to its public nature, and not constituting a copyrighted work due to a lack of originality in data selection and arrangement, the court noted Datatang’s significant investment in technology, capital, and labor. This investment resulted in the lawful collection and creation of high-quality data entries, which enhanced the commercial value of the original data.
The court acknowledged that such high-quality data meets the needs of AI model developers, attracts traffic, and provides Datatang with business opportunities and competitive advantages. Consequently, these commercial interests were deemed to constitute competitive rights that merit protection under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
This case underscores the importance of data registration and the recognition of substantial investment in data collection and processing as a basis for asserting data rights.
