Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

The Directive will inevitably drive up the price of databasesproduced in Europe. If the United States resists the temptation toadopt overbroad database legislation, the U.S. database industryshould become all the more competitive in the global market place.Nor will U.S. database producers be all that disadvantaged inEurope itself, as European countries are obliged under Article10bis of the Paris Convention to provide protection against unfaircompetition, which would arguably include protecting against thewholesale competitive duplication of databases created by others.Those U.S. database producers who believe that the new suigeneris protection is crucial for their operations in Europe canqualify for protection by opening a registered office in the EU thatis genuinely linked on an ongoing basis with the economy of anEU member state.If, on the other hand, the United States gives in to thetemptation to adopt overbroad database protection, then U.S.database users (and, in short order, database users worldwide)will have been unwittingly enlisted to subsidize a European effortto gain market share in an industry that the United Statescurrently dominates.