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BASIS FOR DETERMINING WHETHER PRODUCT CATALOGUES ARE COPYRIGHTABLE
Opinions have been very much divided in practice as to whether product catalogues are literary works protectable under the Copyright Act.
In a criminal appeal judgment issued on 7 May 2008, the Supreme Court held that under the provisions of Article 3 Paragraph 1 Subparagraph 1 and Article 5 Paragraph 1 Subparagraph 1 of the Copyright Act, works protectable under the Act do indeed include oral and literary works; however, for an oral or literary work to be protectable under the Act, the work's content must express the creativity of the author, or be creative in nature, and must possess originality.
According to the Court, product catalogues contain statements about the composition, application, effects, and mode of use of the relevant products. But if such statements merely comprise simple descriptions of the products' composition, application, mode of use, matters for attention, and the like, then because of the shared characteristics of goods of the same type in terms of their use or application, such descriptions will inevitably be identical or similar. In such cases it must be considered on a case-by-case basis whether the mode of expression possesses originality and thus falls within the scope of protection under the Copyright Act.