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As early as in October 1986, Infoterm convened an International Workshop on Copyright in Terminology. That was at a time, when nobody was aware of copyright issues, and neither legal nor database experts would talk to each other.
The results of the above-mentioned Workshop were later supplemented by a (draft) Code of good practice – “Copyright in terminology”, which had been prepared in co-operation with a number of experts in response to a recommendation of the Joint Inter-Agency Meeting of Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology (JIAMCATT), a forum for debate, exchange of expertise and cooperation within the United Nations.
In 1992, the German Terminology Association (Deutscher Terminologie-Tag e.V.) picked up the topic and organized a Symposium on Intellectual Property Rights in Terminologies, which contributed significantly to raise awareness of copyright problems in the field of terminology and beyond.
The Symposium paved the way for another International Workshop on Copyright in Terminology, held by Infoterm as part of the Third International Congress on Terminology and Knowledge Engineering” (TKE’93) in Cologne in 1993. This Workshop discussed a model contract drafted by Jürgen Goebel and Christian Galinski, which later passed several rounds of checks by legal experts of international organizations of the UN system and international NGOs, such as ISO.
The result of that discussion gradually took shape in the direction of general guidelines, which were presented at an International Expert Meeting on Intellectual Property Rights, jointly organized by UNIDO, UNESCO, Infoterm and OCG (Austrian Computer Society) in Vienna, on 23-24 March 1995. The Expert Meeting also served as a preparatory event leading up to the First International Congress on Intellectual Property Rights for Specialized Information, Knowledge and New Technologies (KnowRight’95), held in Vienna on 21-25 August 1995. Infoterm contributed to the Congress with a pre-conference workshop on “Copyright in Terminology and Lexicography” (and other kinds of knowledge representation at the level of concepts).
Over the years, many experts had contributed to the formulation of the above-mentioned guidelines, identifying thereby many hidden or hitherto unrecognized issues with respect to terminology and copyright. The various discussions also led to a much broader understanding about the nature of terminology, not just being about terms, but also comprising terminological phraseology, proper names (occurring in units and quantities, biological nomenclatures etc. or as trade-names in terms) and other kinds of – especially non-verbal linguistic – representations of concepts.
Finally, the European Language Resource Association (ELRA) supported the finalization and production of the English and German version of the "Guide to Terminology Agreements", which was later translated also into other languages. It includes the Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases, adopted by the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996. The Guide has been taken as an authoritative reference in several pioneering EU projects and is still considered a fundamental document for terminology planning in organizations, institutions and enterprises.
Although the Guide to Terminology Agreements is still valid, it is envisaged to update and extend it towards IPR issues of structured content (at the level of lexical semantics) in general.
See also:  Copyright and other Legal Issues by Inke Raupach (Institute for Information Management, Cologne)
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