CROATIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Iva Basarić, Marija Gregorić and Matija Skender, Babic & Partners
11.3 Data Protection and Privacy Considerations
Property Organization (WIPO) and a party to major international treaties relating to IP, including the Bern Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. On the other hand, due to Croatia being a relatively small jurisdiction, disputes regarding IP are rare. As a result, a number of areas of IP law do not have any rel - evant and established case law (eg, in the area of pat - ents and topographies of semiconductor products), while in other more active areas such as copyright and related rights and trade marks, the Croatian courts are still struggling to establish uniform application of the law. In this regard, considering that Croatian legisla - tion is silent on the issue of AI-generated works, it remains to be seen whether Croatian courts will grant copyright protection over AI-generated works, noting, however, that there is a strong opinion among Croa - tian legal scholars against this option. Consequently, from the perspective of foreign inves - tors, it is paramount to pre-emptively screen any IP portfolios in the case of intended acquisitions in order to establish the title of the rights holders. It is therefore worth noting the following. • Property rights in copyright works created by employees in connection with the employment relationship are automatically assigned to the employer, unless otherwise provided in the con - tract between the employer and the employee and/ or the employer’s regulations. On the other hand, moral rights over copyright works are non-assigna - ble and can only be partially limited by contract. • Rights over inventions created by employees dur - ing the performance of work or in connection with their employment will be vested with the employer, while the employee will have a right to an award as established in a contract or a collective bargaining agreement – or failing this, an appropriate award as established by a court.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the prime source of rules governing the processing of data of individuals in Croatia. The GDPR is particu - larly important in the context of FDI due to its extra - territorial scope of application, with the GDPR also being applicable to investors that are not established in the EU but process the data of individuals who are located in the EU for the purpose of offering goods or services, or monitoring the behaviour of individuals within the EU. In addition to the GDPR, Croatia also adopted the Act on Implementation of the GDPR, which regulates special cases of processing personal data, such as the prohibition of processing genetic data in relation to insurance contracts, the processing of biometric data and the processing of video surveillance data, with each of the special cases having a separate territorial scope of application.
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