protection.³ These three developments have resulted in a perceived increased vulnerability of databases to misappropriation and to a new European legal regime that has been alleged to place U.S. database rights holders at a competitive disadvantage in Europe.⁴ It is the last factor that appears to concern private-sector scientific and technical (S&T) database producers and vendors the most, based on input received at the committee's January 1999 workshop. Nevertheless, it is important to note that all other laws protecting foreign rights holders in the European Union remain independently applicable to them under the national treatment clause of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement)⁵ and related conventions.

This chapter briefly describes the law and policy governing U.S. government databases; the existing legal, technical, and market-based measures that are available to protect private-sector databases in the United States; and the new E.U. Database Directive.

The U.S. government is the world's largest creator, user, and disseminator of data and information, including the federal records and S&T databases that are considered highly valuable national assets. A basic principle underlying most U.S. information law is that democracy thrives and the economic and social benefits of information are maximized in society by fostering wide diversity in the creation, dissemination, and use of information.⁶ By extension, to gain the greatest economic and social benefits from government information assets, such information should be made available to all in the most efficient, timely, and equitable ways possible. U.S. laws and policies generally implement this proposition. In direct contrast to those laws that encourage protection of the proprietary rights of private-sector entities, U.S. domestic information policy at the federal level may be summarized as one comprising "a strong freedom of infor