A lecturer claimed that parts of her research paper were copied as part of an academic article published by a doctoral student, contending that there is an identity between the subject of the article and the subject of her research work, including findings and conclusions presented as if they were the findings of the doctoral student's research.
The Court dismissed the claim for non-infringement of copyright. Israeli Copyright Law states that the scope of protection granted to a work is not absolute and that there are a number of exceptions under which the right will not exist, such as: an idea, a process and methods of execution, a fact and a data. The right applies only to the manner they are expressed. Copyright infringement is not examined based on a mechanical comparison of words but on the basis of an impression of the work as a whole and search for "innovative product". Multiple points of similarity may indicate that it is a case of copying, which can amount to an infringement upon the author's copyright. Here, even if the researcher used in her article ideas and theses that appeared in the lecturer's research, the copyright does not apply to them. No similarities were found in relation to the manner of expressing an idea protected by copyright, and no "innovative product" was found in the research, which is a manner of expressing an idea protected by copyright. The doctoral student in the article did not appropriate for herself any product from the research that deviated from an idea. Therefore, there is no copying and no copyright infringement has been committed.