Maxim Ali helped “Pravo.ru” to make the TOP-10 disputes in the field of intellectual property for the first half of 2021
“Pravo.ru” has prepared a review of the most interesting court decisions on cases related to intellectual property. One of them was a dispute between “VKontakte” and the company “Double” (brand “Double Data”). The last company used its own algorithms to analyze public data on users of the social network, assessing their solvency and selling the obtained information to banks. Representatives of “VKontakte” estimated such actions as a violation of the right to their own databases and filed a lawsuit. The Arbitration Court of Moscow dismissed the claim, comparing the principle of the “Double’s” software with the work of search engines. However, the 9th Arbitration Court of Appeal did not agree with such decision, pointing out that the use of “VKontakte” user database violates the exclusive rights of the social network. The court also pointed out that the use of databases created by “Double” leads to a violation of the social network’s obligations to protect the information of its users.
Maxim Ali, Partner, Head of Intellectual Property and Information Technologies practice at Maxima Legal, told “Pravo.ru” that “the VKontakte case against Double has been going on for more than four years, but is still the most interesting for the Russian IT industry. It covers the question of whether “parsing” user data from the social network is legal in principle. The case is especially interesting because the content of databases is a very specific type of intellectual property and disputes concerning such objects are not very often heard in courts”.
According to the expert, “VKontakte” is too early to celebrate the victory, as “Double” will certainly appeal the decision in the Court of Intellectual Rights, but at the moment the complaint has not yet been filed (case number A40-18827/2017). “The conclusions of the cassation will be most interesting for lawyers from the IT-industry,” – noted Maxim.
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