## Facts

- The British Horseracing Board (BHB) and related entities administered British horseracing and maintained an electronic horseracing database.
- The database contained extensive information (including fixtures, entries, declarations, and race conditions) and required significant expenditure to operate.
- From the database, BHB generated pre-race “race lists” identifying for each race the date, time, course, and runners.
- BHB licensed database-derived information, including via a licensed intermediary that supplied data feeds to bookmakers.
- William Hill, a bookmaker, did not access BHB’s database directly; it obtained race information indirectly from a feed and displayed limited pre-race details on its betting website for a subset of races.
- BHB sued, alleging infringement of the EU sui generis database right under Directive 96/9/EC, as implemented in UK law.
- A UK trial court found infringement and granted an injunction; the appellate court referred questions on the scope of database right protections to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

## Issues

1. Whether expenditures primarily directed to creating horseracing data constitute “investment in the obtaining, verification or presentation” of database contents under Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC.
2. Whether William Hill’s use of limited race-list information constituted “extraction” or “re-utilisation” of the whole or a substantial part of the database under Article 7(1).
3. Whether repeated and systematic taking of insubstantial parts infringes Article 7(5), and what threshold must be met for liability.

## Decision

- The CJEU held that Article 7(1) protects substantial investment in seeking out, collecting, verifying, or presenting existing independent materials, not investment in creating the underlying data.
- The CJEU defined “extraction” as transfer of all or a substantial part of database contents to another medium, and “re-utilisation” as making available to the public all or a substantial part by distribution or transmission, including online.
- The CJEU ruled that “substantial part” is assessed both quantitatively (volume taken relative to the whole) and qualitatively (the scale of protected investment embodied in the part taken).
- On the referred facts, the information used by William Hill was quantitatively insubstantial and not qualitatively substantial because the relevant effort was tied to creating the data, not to protected “obtaining” or “verification.”
- The CJEU held that Article 7(5) prohibits repeated/systematic taking of insubstantial parts only where the cumulative acts reconstitute or make available the whole or a substantial part of the database and thereby conflict with normal exploitation or unreasonably prejudice the maker’s legitimate interests.
- The CJEU’s interpretation led to the conclusion that William Hill’s conduct, as described, did not satisfy Article 7(5)’s cumulative threshold.

## Legal Principles

- “Investment in obtaining” refers to resources used to find and collect existing independent materials; it excludes resources used to create the materials that become database contents.
- “Investment in verification” covers resources used to ensure reliability and monitor accuracy of collected materials during creation and operation; it does not cover verification inherent in creating the data itself.
- “Extraction” is the permanent or temporary transfer of all or a substantial part of database contents to another medium by any means or in any form.
- “Re-utilisation” is making available to the public all or a substantial part of database contents, including by online transmission.
- “Substantial part” may be substantial by quantity (volume taken) or by quality (protected investment represented by the part taken).
- Repeated and systematic taking of insubstantial parts violates Article 7(5) only when the cumulative effect reconstructs or makes available the whole or a substantial part and harms normal exploitation or legitimate interests.

## Conclusion

The CJEU limited the sui generis database right to protect investment in collecting, verifying, and presenting existing data, not the cost of generating the underlying information, and held that liability for repeated taking of small amounts requires a cumulative effect that effectively reproduces a substantial portion of the database and harms the database maker’s protected interests.


British Horseracing Bd. Ltd. v. William Hill Org. Ltd., Case C-203/02, 2004 WL 2709083 (C.J.E.U. 2004)