Court ruling confirms letters can have copyright & confidentiality protection

The High Court has confirmed that a business letter can be protected by copyright and obligations of confidentiality. This is a logical and obvious decision, and therefore one that UK businesses and their lawyers can take comfort in.

The case in question is Cembrit Blunn v Apex Roofing. The dispute was mainly to do with roofing slates, but the part we're interested in is the court's findings on a business letter produced by the defendants.

Dansk, the parent company of Cembrit, had created the letter and sent it to Cembrit's directors.  Apex Roofing. The letter discussed settlement of the dispute over the roofing slates. Apex Roofing was given the letter by a former consultant to Cembrit. Apex Roofing then circulated this letter.

Court ruling on copyright & confidentiality issues
The court ruled as follows:

• Copyright. Dansk's creation of the letter involved sufficient skill and labour for it to be protected by copyright. By copying that letter, Apex Roofing had infringed copyright in the letter.
• Confidentiality. (To be protected by the law as confidential information, something must be by its nature confidential, and must be disclosing in circumstances showing an obligation to keep it confident). The letter was a private communication from Dansk to Cembrit's directors and wasn't meant for circulation. Whilst the letter did contain some information that was widely known, it contained other information that was not public knowledge. The letter had also been disclosed (each time it was disclosed) in circumstances showing an obligation of confidentiality. There was no public interest to justify the letter's circulation by Apex Roofing.

IMPACT comment
Whilst this case might merely reinforce what we already knew, it just goes to show that:

• Most letters will be protected by copyright, even if they only take a short time to write. The letter in this case took half an hour to produce.
• It's worth marking confidential information as being confidential, to show that it is disclosed under an obligation of confidentiality.