Inventions can be patented, knowledge can be protected through the law of trade secrets, but information itself? The form or medium of information can be protected by copyright but information itself is more difficult. It cannot be owned. So how can the law effectively protect it?

Both the law - and hence the commercial realities - remain uncertain. Professional advisers must at least be fully up to speed with what the law currently says [and doesn't say] and what the implications are.

This Special Report examines the current EU [and so EEA] law on the legal protection of databases, including the sui generis right established when the European Union adopted its Directive 96/9/EC in 1996.