Countrywide Assured Group, one of the country's largest estate agents, is suing the property web site, Homemovers, for copyright infringement.

Countrywide claims that Homemovers copied its database without consent by taking property particulars acquired from agency branches and "by other means" and posting them on its web site. It is now seeking damages and a court order to prevent any future copying from its database. Homemovers denies the allegations.

The case looks set to clarify the law protecting information on-line. It is the first of its kind since new database regulations were introduced at the beginning of 1998 which impose a higher test of "originality" to establish protection. The new rules mean that the data within the databases must have been compiled with some degree of "intellectual creation". Further, the database itself may now be protected from unauthorised extraction or reutilisation.

As the new regulations have yet to appear before the courts, the Countrywide case is the most high-profile yet brought and, if it reaches the courtroom, should clarify the elements that a database must meet to be legally protected.

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