MB Novus nexus v UAB Solidas, civil case e3K-3-77-687/2020

Expediente y fuentes

Nombre

MB Novus nexus v UAB Solidas, civil case e3K-3-77-687/2020

Cita

MB Novus nexus v UAB Solidas, civil case e3K-3-77-687/2020

Tribunal

Supreme Court of Lithuania, Civil Division

Instancia

última instancia

Fechas

Decisión

2020-03-26

Estado

resuelto-firmeza-no-verificada

Resultado

Cassation dismissed; the 11 July 2019 appellate ruling remained unchanged; EUR 9,500 compensation and other relief stood. Final and unappealable.

Resumen

A work requires cumulatively the author’s creative/intellectual activity, originality and objective expression. Functional constraints and use of legal-source fragments do not automatically defeat originality; the package must be assessed as a whole. GDPR did not exhaust the drafter’s choices over content and form, and the templates were not themselves official legal acts. The lower courts correctly found protection and infringement.

Antecedentes

Under a 7 March 2018 consultancy agreement, Novus nexus prepared GDPR compliance document packages for three Solidas clients and reserved economic rights. It delivered the packages in April and May 2018. Solidas later supplied highly similar or identical packages and fragments to other entities; 29 of 34 documents in one package used the claimant’s package. Novus sought injunctions, notifications to recipients and EUR 19,000 compensation.

Historia procesal

Kaunas District Court on 4 March 2019 granted relief in part and EUR 9,500 compensation. Kaunas Regional Court affirmed on 11 July 2019. Solidas sought cassation.

Cuestión jurídica

Whether functional GDPR templates assembled from legal and regulatory material could be original works, whether they were excluded official texts and whether the remedies were supported.

Criterio

A work requires cumulatively the author’s creative/intellectual activity, originality and objective expression. Functional constraints and use of legal-source fragments do not automatically defeat originality; the package must be assessed as a whole. GDPR did not exhaust the drafter’s choices over content and form, and the templates were not themselves official legal acts. The lower courts correctly found protection and infringement.

Fundamento decisivo

The decisive inquiry is whether the author retained and exercised sufficient expressive freedom in the integrated result. Originality cannot be defeated merely by atomising components or pointing to constraints. The statutory exclusion list is closed and cannot be extended by analogy.

Límites

Human-drafted GDPR template package. Functional constraints did not eliminate all creative freedom on the proved facts, but labour, compliance value or assembly alone are not a substitute for the harmonised originality standard.

Relevancia

doctrina-general

Referencias relacionadas

Peso del precedente

Direct national threshold authority. Its discussion of differing “subjective/objective” originality levels must be read consistently with the unitary CJEU standard and does not authorise sweat of the brow. Integración/votación: Alė Bukavinienė, Janina Januškienė (presiding and rapporteur), Donatas Šernas. Three-judge panel; no numerical tally, concurrence or dissent is published.

Fuente

Referencia

MB Novus nexus v UAB Solidas, civil case e3K-3-77-687/2020

Enlace

Consultar fuente

Autoridad

Supreme Court of Lithuania, Civil Division

Tipo

final national civil copyright judgment; GDPR compliance templates; non-AI

Localizador

paras. 1–19 (facts and procedure), 22–34 (cumulative test and whole-work originality), 35–37 (official-text exclusion), operative part

Verificación documentada

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