Agent prodaje nekretnina — original elements, expert proof and private authorization

Expediente y fuentes

Nombre

Agent prodaje nekretnina — original elements, expert proof and private authorization

Cita

Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia, Revt-473/2015-2, ECLI:HR:VSRH:2020:5470, 6 October 2020

record kind

judicial_decision

Tribunal

Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia

Instancia

national supreme court, civil revision

Fechas

Decisión

2020-10-06

first instance

2013-06-17

Recurso

2015-09-02

Estado

final judgment dismissing revision

Resultado

Revision dismissed; rejection of the HRK 3.5 million damages claim remained in force; defendant's response costs were not awarded.

Resumen

No. The claimant bore the burden of proving which elements were original rather than predetermined, whether the programs were identical or similar in the protected respects, and the infringement and loss. Authorship and the private authorization identifier alone did not establish the scope of the right or infringement.

Antecedentes

The claimant alleged that a real-estate training program titled 'Posrednik u prometu nekretnina' plagiarized her program 'Agent prodaje nekretnina' and sought HRK 3.5 million. Her program had private Croatian Authors Agency authorization identifiers from 1998 through 2004, but the disputed scope, original versus predetermined elements and similarity remained unproved.

Historia procesal

The Zagreb Commercial Court dismissed the claim after an interdisciplinary expert examination it had ordered was not conducted because the claimant did not pay the HRK 20,000 advance. The High Commercial Court affirmed. On revision, the Supreme Court reviewed the pleaded procedural and substantive errors and dismissed the revision.

Cuestión jurídica

Did authorship and a private authorization number prove protected scope, plagiarism and damages without evidence identifying the original elements and similarity between the programs?

Criterio

No. The claimant bore the burden of proving which elements were original rather than predetermined, whether the programs were identical or similar in the protected respects, and the infringement and loss. Authorship and the private authorization identifier alone did not establish the scope of the right or infringement.

Fundamento decisivo

The court could not infer plagiarism from failed negotiations, independent program production or private authorization. Because expert evidence needed to distinguish original and unoriginal elements was not produced, the claimant failed the evidentiary predicates for liability and damages.

Límites

Applied the predecessor Act to a human-authored training program. It is a burden-of-proof and protected-scope authority, not a ruling that private deposit is legally irrelevant for every evidentiary purpose and not an AI case.

Relevancia

doctrina-general

Referencias relacionadas

Peso del precedente

Final Supreme Court application on proof and scope; strong for evidentiary discipline, not an express GenAI holding. Integración/votación: Five-judge panel; no dissent or vote breakdown appears in the published judgment, so unanimity is not asserted.

Fuente

Referencia

Agent prodaje nekretnina — original elements, expert proof and private authorization

Enlace

Consultar fuente

Autoridad

Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia

Tipo

primary_judicial_full_text_cross_checked_reproduction

Tipo de evidencia

primary_judicial_full_text_cross_checked_reproduction

Método de comprobación

Exact full-text reproduction read and cross-checked against official decision identifier and metadata; the official court host was temporarily unresolved during the second-review fetch.

Localizador

full reasons: disputed original/non-original elements, expert order and unpaid HRK 20,000 advance; final burden analysis; private authorization 09-326

Verificación documentada

Sí