Sweat of the brow

Sweat of the brow is an intellectual property law doctrine, chiefly related to copyright law. According to this doctrine, an author gains rights through simple diligence during the creation of a work, such as a database, or a directory. Substantial creativity or "originality" is not required.

Under a "sweat of the brow" doctrine, the creator of a copyrighted work, even if it is completely unoriginal, is entitled to have his effort and expense protected, and no one else may use such a work without permission, but must instead recreate the work by independent research or effort. The classic example is a telephone directory. In a "sweat of the brow" jurisdiction, such a directory may not be copied, but instead a competitor must independently collect the information to issue a competing directory. The same rule generally applies to databases and lists of facts.

Civil law jurisdictions have traditionally used the similar but not identical concept of droit d'auteur. European Union law tends to harmonize the protection of intellectual property throughout member states and the doctrine thus gains more influence. In the Databases Directive 96/9/EC—the member states of the EU are obliged to confer protection known as the database right on non-original databases, that is on those that embody no creativity, but are a consequence of substantial investment (financial, labour etc.).

In a traditional English idiom, the sweat of one's brow refers to the effort expended in labor, and the value created thereby. The phrase is famously used in English translations of . The law doctrine takes its name from this idiom.

The United States rejected this doctrine in the 1991 United States Supreme Court case Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service; until then it had been upheld in a number of US copyright cases.

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