New technology

Historically, intellectual property law has depended on its birth directly from the development of technology. It is a commonplace in intellectual property law theory that the invention of the printing press was a landmark for intellectual property law in conjunction with the cultural and philosophical current that followed. In particular, the so-called "privileges" which were granted by the state authorities initially to printers and publishers-booksellers and later to creators were the forerunner of intellectual property rights. Technological progress contributed both to the establishment of intellectual property law and to its formation. Technical developments have made it possible to reproduce works without the mediation and remuneration of their original creator, resulting in the immediate need to provide protection to creators against the risk of not being paid for their work. At the same time, due to technological development and socio-economic needs, new forms of protected works have been created, such as photography, cinematographic works, computer programs, databases, multimedia, as well as new means of publicizing – distributing all works by radio and television to the internet. The following is particularly worth noting in relation to certain new technology works protected by copyright.

Computer programs

Law 2121/1993 harmonized Greek law with Community Directive 250/91 for the legal protection of H/Y programs. Both computer programs and their preparatory material are considered speech works. The computer program is protected in any form of its expression, whether that is when it is in machine code or in source code. A clear definition of the PC program does not exist in the law, following the example of the Directive, in order for the concept to be open to adaptations that may arise from technological developments. The ideas and principles underlying the program and its components, including those underlying its interfaces, are not protected. The preparatory design material of a program is protected according to the preamble of the above-mentioned relevant Community Directive "provided that the nature of the preparatory work is such that the computer program can be derived from it at a later stage[…]". Greek jurisprudence has specifically accepted that the general concept of software includes: a) the PC program, b) the description of the program (preparatory material) and c) the accompanying material. The description of the program according to the Greek courts includes the protection of its elaboration, part and that of the general concept of the software defined by the standard instructions as a complete representation of a process in linguistic, schematic or other form, the elements of which are sufficient to define of a series of commands, which will make up the final program and with the help of which it can be finalized. The accompanying material or application documentation includes the instructions to the user, comments, observations and notes that explain the handling of the program [PPrThess 18201/1998, SymbEfAth 2949/2003]. Typical cases of preparatory material are the list of commands and the flow of diagrams (flowchart). In the internet environment, the so-called "browsers", search engines, e-mail software and the special software used to activate the hyperlinks.

Databases

The Greek legislator, although in the original legislation for the protection of P.I. already contained a reference to databases, it has now already adopted (a.2§2a) the definition of the database given in Community Directive 96/9, which it incorporated with Law 2819/2000.

According to this definition databases are considered: "collections of works, data or other independent elements, arranged in a systematic or methodical manner and individually accessible by electronic means or otherwise". It is clarified that in order for electronic databases to fall under the above concept, it is not necessary to store the individual elements contained in a physical medium.

It is immaterial, in principle, whether the content of the base is independently protected by copyright law or not. The data need not be copyrighted works or have intellectual content or the like. The same protection is enjoyed, for example, by the legal database of the National Printing Office, which includes legislation published in the Official Gazette, which as state texts do not enjoy independent protection, and the Heal link database, which contains protected scientific publications.

For a database to be protected by copyright law, the selection or arrangement of its contents is required by law to constitute an intellectual work. No other criteria are required to grant protection. This protection does not extend to the content of the databases and does not affect any of the rights that exist in this content. Therefore, in a database, which contains other copyrighted works, eg photographs, the protection of the database remains independent of the protection of the photographs.

Regarding databases, a special right (sui generis) was recognized for their maker (maker of databases), i.e. the natural or legal person who takes the initiative and bears the risk of the investments. The term "builder" of the base was deliberately used instead of the term producer to distinguish it from the contractor who can implement it. The purpose of establishing this special right is to protect the economic and professional investment of the manufacturer against the appropriation of the results of this investment by third parties.

In particular, in a.45A it is provided that: "the database manufacturer has the right to prohibit the export and/or reuse of all or a substantial part of the content of the database, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, if the acquisition, control or presentation of database content demonstrate substantial qualitative or quantitative investment'.

The constructor of the database does not necessarily coincide with its creator, but this is not excluded. A creator according to our national law can only be a natural person, while a "manufacturer" can be either a natural person or a legal person. The creator has the absolute and exclusive right attributed to him in article 3 of the law. Specifically: "The database creator has the exclusive right to allow or prohibit: a) the temporary or permanent reproduction of the database by any means and form, in whole or in part, b) the translation, adaptation, arrangement and any other conversion of the database, c) any form of distribution of the database or copies thereof to the public. ……, d) any announcement, display or presentation of the database to the public, e) any reproduction, distribution, announcement, display or presentation to the public of the results of the actions referred to in point b''. When creator and manufacturer are the same person, then they cumulatively enjoy the double protection provided for in articles 45A and 3 of Law 2121/1993.

Multimedia

The law does not specifically refer to multimedia. However, their widespread development and widespread use in our days brought to the fore the question of their protection under intellectual property law. The practical problems that arise are related to the difficulty of subscribing them to one of the traditional categories of works of intellectual property law. Usually the individual creators are easy to trace and the relationships between them are regulated by conventions. However, finding the subject of the rights is not enough, if the object of the rights cannot be identified, that is, the category of the work on which any rights exist. The theory oscillates between characterizing multimedia as either audiovisual works or databases. Multimedia can be defined as "products or services that combine in a single medium, in digital form, at least two different types of works or data (texts, sounds, images, etc.), while at the same time providing the user with the possibility of interacting with the content them with the help of a software (E. Stamatoudi, "The protection of multimedia as software, databases or audiovisual works" (2001) Chronicles of Private Law pp. 785 - 791, and I. Stamatoudi, Multimedia products as copyright works, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).

Websites

In the same context, the protection of web pages as autonomous projects also moves. First, a website in most cases contains other works, such as software, images, texts and sounds, which, as long as they meet the requirements of the law, will be protected independently. A work is equally protected whether it is embedded in a material carrier (eg print or cd), or located on an internet site (eg a photograph enjoys the same protection whether it is printed in a newspaper or presented on a newspaper's website). The use of any digital online work is subject to the provisions of the law, just as it is when it is available in any offline format.

The website itself can independently be protected as a work even without falling into one of the indicated indicative categories of works of no. 2 Law 2121/93. In some cases it could fall under the concept of a database while alternatively certain parts of it (which make it up) could be protected as works if they meet the requirements of the law.

The operator of the website, its legal owner, who is usually identified with the registrar of the relevant domain name, does not automatically acquire any special right, such as that of the manufacturer of a database, unless the website in question falls within the meaning of the database data. Any rights he has over the contents of the website will derive either from the fact that he himself has created the independent works and is therefore the primary beneficiary, or from the contracts for the transfer of property rights over the individual works that he will have concluded with their original creators , in which case he will be a secondary beneficiary.

It should be emphasized that ideas, processes, methods of operation or mathematical concepts per se are not protected under intellectual property law.

Some products that are not protected by intellectual property law may be protected in other ways, such as by industrial property law or unfair competition.

The main difference between intellectual property law and industrial property law is that the former protects the expression of an idea as long as it is perceptible to the human senses, while the latter protects ideas as long as they are new and in the case of inventions amenable industrial application.

SOURCE: https://web.opi.gr/xres/p/EL/web.opi.gr/portal/page/portal/opi/info/tech.html