HT-2021-000363 - [2025] EWHC 532 (TCC)

The Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPS") which forms Annex 1C to the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation signed in Morocco on 15 April 1994, to which the United Kingdom and the European Union and all its Member States are parties, includes the following provisions:

“Article 9

Relation to the Berne Convention

1.

Members shall comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (1971) and the Appendix thereto. However, Members shall not have rights or obligations under this Agreement in respect of the rights conferred under Article 6 of that Convention or of the rights derived therefrom.

2.

Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.

Article 10

Computer Programs and Compilations of Data

1.

Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).

2.

Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine readable or other form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations, shall be protected as such. Such protection, which shall not extend to the data or material itself, shall be without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material itself.

…

Article 13

Limitation and Exceptions

Members shall confine limitations or exceptions to exclusive rights to certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.”