What legal issues do Creative Commons licenses not cover?
Creative Commons licenses only apply to copyrightable works. There may be many other legal issues that arise in relation to copyrighted materials that Creative Commons licenses do not cover and that database providers need to consider. For example, Creative Commons licenses do not affect patent rights. Although copyright does not protect factual information, patent law does protect ideas, inventions, processes and methods. Database owners should think about the extent to which they need to make their database users aware of the fact that patent rights may restrict the use that can be made of the factual information contained in a database.
