Infogroup awarded $53.6m against Gupta and Database101

The jury in the Omaha-based federal court found  Gupta, Database101 (DB101 )and various divisions – AtoZdatabases, Infofree and DatabaseUSA – had violated various federal laws and contractual obligations.

The outcome establishes legal precedent for the copyright protection of Infogroup’s business database.

This long legal battle began more than four years ago when Infogroup filed suit against Gupta and DB101 in February 2014.

Gupta and DB101 were found liable on all seven counts including infringing Infogroup’s database copyright and trademarks, unfair competition, false advertising and breach of various contracts.

Two significant findings were that: Infogroup’s extensive processes of compiling its databases (data selection, refinement, verification, updating and user-friendly arrangement) qualified for copyright protection; and Gupta and DB101 had unlawfully passed Infogroup’s proprietary database off as their own.  

Greg Scaglione, who tried the case for Infogroup and leads the National Litigation Practice at Koley Jessen, said: "The jury agreed that Infogroup’s industry leading techniques of database management qualified Infogroup’s database for protection under federal copyright law."

Mike Iaccarino, chairman and CEO of Infogroup, said: "Our team has worked tirelessly to build databases that are best in class when it comes to quality and accuracy. These verdicts underscore our dedication to protect our copyright, trademarks, customer lists and other property. We will tenaciously compete but we will always compete fairly."