MOSCOW, August 24 (RAPSI) – The Russian Intellectual Property Court has confirmed the dismissal of a claim seeking to recover 20 million rubles ($338 thousand at the current exchange rate) from Gibraltar-based E-Learning Ltd for publishing information about chess games played at The World Chess Candidates Tournament on chess24.com website, the court materials read on Thursday.

By its ruling the court has dismissed a complaint lodged by company Candidates Tournament, the organizer of this chess event, over the decisions taken by lower courts.

Yet in 2016, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the claim lodged by the company to recover compensation from E-Learning Ltd and oblige it to stop translations of moves made in the course of chess games played at the tournament. 

At that time, in its claim Candidates Tournament insisted that information about moves was “privileged” and by publishing it E-Learning infringed on the company’s author’s rights.

The courts dismissed the claim noting that it lacked substantiation.

In its decision, the Intellectual Property Court stated that the publication of moves made at important chess tournaments was a common practice and did not break the law. Chess moves (chess games), the court said, were information without any signs of creative nature and originality, and was not intellectual property.