## Facts

- Experian compiled and licensed portions of a large consumer-marketing database containing name-and-address pairings drawn from thousands of sources and refined through reliability testing and exclusion rules.
- Experian held a copyright registration covering the database’s “selection, coordination, arrangement, and compilation of data.”
- Nationwide Marketing Services, Inc. (Natimark), a competitor, acquired a large consumer dataset and attempted (through a broker) to sell Experian a dataset that combined children’s birthdays with parents’ name-and-address pairings.
- Experian’s testing of the offered data showed an exceptionally high match rate with Experian’s own database (approximately 94–97%).
- Experian sued Natimark in federal district court alleging (1) copyright infringement of the name-and-address compilation and (2) misappropriation of trade secrets under Arizona law.
- The district court granted summary judgment to Natimark on both claims, finding the compilation insufficiently original for copyright and the information not protectable as a trade secret.

## Issues

1. Whether Experian’s name-and-address pairings reflected sufficient originality in selection and arrangement to qualify for compilation copyright protection.
2. If copyrightable, whether evidence of high overlap established infringement of a thin compilation copyright (i.e., copying of protected selection/arrangement rather than underlying facts).
3. Whether the lists could qualify as trade secrets under Arizona law if reasonable secrecy measures were used.
4. Whether the evidence created a genuine dispute that Natimark knew or should have known the data was misappropriated.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit held the name-and-address pairings were copyrightable as a compilation, but only with thin protection.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for Natimark on the copyright infringement claim because Experian did not show the kind of close copying required to infringe a thin compilation copyright (described as “bodily appropriation” of the protected work).
- The court reversed summary judgment on the Arizona trade secret claim, holding the lists could be trade secrets if protected by proper safeguards.
- The court held there were triable issues regarding Natimark’s knowledge of misappropriation and remanded for further proceedings on the trade secret claim.

## Legal Principles

- Facts are not copyrightable, but compilations of facts may be protected if the selection, coordination, or arrangement reflects at least minimal originality.
- Copyright in factual databases is often “thin,” limiting protection to the compiler’s original selection/arrangement rather than the underlying factual content.
- For thin compilation copyrights, infringement generally requires a very close appropriation of the protected selection/arrangement; high factual overlap alone may be insufficient.
- Under Arizona law, a data compilation may qualify as a trade secret if it derives economic value from not being generally known and the owner uses reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy.
- Circumstantial evidence—such as unusually high overlap, suspicious pricing, and absence of standard contractual restrictions—can be sufficient to create a triable issue on a defendant’s knowledge of trade secret misappropriation.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit recognized that sophisticated name-and-address compilations can satisfy the originality threshold for copyright, but that protection is limited and requires proof of close copying to establish infringement; it also held the same information may be protected as a trade secret where secrecy measures and evidence of the defendant’s knowledge present genuine issues for trial.


Experian Info. Sols., Inc. v. Nationwide Mktg. Servs. Inc., 893 F.3d 1176 (9th Cir. 2018)