On September 6, 2024, the Commercial Court of Madrid, Section 07, issued a ruling in a case of intellectual property rights infringement. The plaintiff alleged, under Article 1 and subsequent articles of the Intellectual Property Law (hereinafter, IPL), that her work “MARIANA OF AUSTRIA IN THE POLITICAL CROSSROADS OF THE 17TH CENTURY” had been plagiarized by the defendant in his doctoral thesis “THE GOVERNANCE OF THE HISPANIC MONARCHY DURING THE REGENCY OF MARIANA OF AUSTRIA (1665-1675).”

The author of the original work requested that the defendant be held liable for infringing her intellectual property rights, demanding: 1) cessation of the infringing work, 2) suspension of its exploitation, and 3) compensation of €6,000 for moral damages caused, in accordance with Article 140 of the IPL. The defendant, in turn, denied the existence of plagiarism and, consequently, the obligation to compensate.

First, the plaintiff argued that she completed her doctoral thesis in 2006, which was subsequently published and registered as a book. Later, she found the defendant’s thesis published and, after analyzing it, detected substantial similarities in several paragraphs, thereby concluding a violation of her intellectual property rights. Furthermore, the plaintiff compared the theses using a report from the academic plagiarism detection software “TURNITIN,” which concluded that there was a 50% similarity between the two works.

The defendant, on the other hand, maintained that his thesis was original, that he correctly cited previous works, and that he did not derive any financial benefit from his work, which is why, following the plaintiff’s claim, he requested that the university withdraw his thesis. He also pointed out that the similarity percentage mentioned by the plaintiff included similarities with internet texts, and that he had correctly cited the plaintiff’s texts. He further argued that historical texts cannot be plagiarized per se, as history cannot be invented but must be reinterpreted from a critical perspective, relying on previous studies and new views of history.

The court concluded that a doctoral thesis can be protected under intellectual property rights if it meets the requirements of expression, creative height, and originality. In this case, these requirements were reflected in the prior study of historical facts, the sources consulted, the presentation of data, and the conclusions drawn. The court also noted that plagiarism is defined as copying someone else’s work and presenting it as one’s own without making substantial or novel contributions.

After comparing both theses, it was determined that there was a 25% literal similarity between the defendant’s work and the plaintiff’s. These similarities, which were not properly cited, let the court to conclude that the defendant had infringed on the plaintiff’s intellectual property rights, appropriating the academic merits of her thesis, causing harm to her rights, and creating confusion regarding the ownership of the work.

Consequently, the court ruled that the defendant must: 1) cease the infringing activity by suspending the exploitation of the work, 2) compensate the plaintiff with €2,000, reducing the amount initially requested since the defendant did not intend to use the work or derive any benefit from it, and 3) publish and disseminate the ruling in the media at the defendant’s expense.

COMMERCIAL COURT No. 07 OF MADRID, Ordinary Procedure 236/2023 of September 6, 2024 (ECLI:ES:JMM:2024:102).