ARMENIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Aram Orbelyan, Narine Beglaryan, Artur Hovhannisyan, Lilit Karapetyan, Sarkis Knyazyan and Shushanik Stepanyan, Concern Dialog
Copyright does not require registration. Authors have the exclusive right to use their creations as they wish and to prohibit or authorise their use by third parties. The infringement of copyright can result in civil and/or criminal liability. Authors’ economic rights are protected during the authors’ lifetimes, plus 70 years after their death. The intangible (moral) rights are inalienable and non- transferable and are not subject to exhaustion with the exception of the right of withdrawal, which runs for the life of the author. 7.5 Others There are no specific regulations for the protection of software; software is subject to copyright protection under general rules. According to the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, a “database” means a collection of works, data or other independent materials arranged in a sys - tematic or methodical way, the individual elements of which shall be separately accessible by electronic or other means, and the acquisition, verification or pres - entation thereof shall require a substantial qualitative and/or quantitative contribution. The maker of a database shall be deemed any person by whose initiative and on whose own responsibility a substantial qualitative and/or quantitative contribution is made for the acquisition, verification or presentation of the content of the database. The rights of a database developer shall arise from the moment of completing the development of the database and shall have effect for 15 years. Trade Secrets There is no specific definition of “trade secret” in the Armenian legislation. Article 141 of the RA Civil Code provides a definition and protection for “Information Constituting an Employment, Commercial, or Banking Secret”. Information constitutes an employment, commer - cial, or banking secret, when such information has an actual or potential commercial value by virtue of it
being unknown to third persons when there is no free access thereto on a legal basis, and when the holder of the information takes measures for the protection of its confidentiality. Persons having illegally obtained information that con - stitutes a trade secret shall be obliged to compensate the damages caused. This obligation shall also be imposed on parties to a contract that have disclosed and/or used a trade secret in violation of a civil law or employment contract.
8. Data Protection 8.1 Applicable Regulations The Regulation of Data Protection
Under the Armenian Constitution, the right to the inviolability of private and family life and the right to protection of personal data are declared as basic human rights, which may only be legally suspended or restricted during a state of emergency or under martial law. Armenia has ratified the Convention for the Protec - tion of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950. This means that Armenia applies personal data protection in its jurisdiction as it is stipulated under Article 8 of this Convention. Armenia has also rati - fied the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Strasbourg, 28 January 1981), including the Protocol amending the Convention for the Protection of Individ - uals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Strasbourg, 10 October 2018). The main internal legal act related to data protection in Armenia is the Law on Protection of Personal Data, which was adopted in 2015 (Data Protection Law). The Data Protection Law stipulates that the following separate laws indicate specific rules for processing the defined particular personal data: • bank secrecy regulated by the Law on Banking Secrecy; • notarial secrecy regulated by the Law on the Notarial System;
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