In the Malamud decision, the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

(ECJ) held on 5 March 2024 in Case C-588/21 P that there may be an overriding public interest in the dissemination of harmonised European standards.

Background

Carl Malamud Carl Malamud (born July 2, 1959) is an American technologist, author, and public domain advocate, known for his foundation Public.Resource.Org. He was also founder and president of the Internet Multicasting Service, an organization based in Wash ...

had requested access to several European standards for his organisation

public.resource.org Public.Resource.Org (PRO) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation dedicated to publishing and sharing public domain materials in the United States and internationally. It was founded by Carl Malamud and is based in Sebastopol, California. Public. ...

. The

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

refused to make the requested European standards for toy safety available free of charge, whereupon Malamud filed a lawsuit. The ECJ ruled that those harmonised technical standards (HTN) that are mandatory are part of Union law. As the principle of the rule of law requires free access to Union law, these standards must be accessible free of charge. However, the Court did not generally rule out copyright protection for harmonised standards. Free access to some harmonised standards is now possible after registration, see ''Access to documents''

References

{{reflist, 2 EN standards European Union law Open access (publishing)