Publishing Open-Access Biomedical Data: Legal Challenges

Abstract

This review article gives a brief overview of some of the key legal challenges the OpenScienceLink , http://opensciencelink.eu ( hereafter OSL ) project faced with publishing biomedical research data online on an open access and re - use basis. Firstly, we give an overview of some of the key privacy challenges that the OSL project faced. Secondly, we analyse the intellectual property chal - lenges that research data possesses and how this type of data could be pro - tected, considering that purely factual elements a re generally not protected under intellectual property laws. In this respect, this article also looks at a number of licensing options for these specific types of data.