The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its order of 18 November 1999 case file I ACa 848/99 interpreted the provisions of Article 21 of Polish Act of 26 January 1984 on Press law – APL – (in Polish: ustawa Prawo prasowe), published in Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No. 5, item 24, with subsequent amendmets.

A registrar body shall deny the registration if:
[1] the application does not contain data that the Act describes (the daily newspaper’s or the periodical’s title, the seat of the publisher and the exact address of the editorial office, the particulars of the editor-in-chief, the particulars of the publisher, the frequency of publishing of the daily newspaper or the periodical) and

[2] if granting registration would constitute infringement of the right to the legal protection of an existing press title.

The Court held that the APL requires the court to refuse to register for the press title when such registration would infringe the right of protection of the existing title. The mere finding that the name of the journal/newspaper/gazette is convergen with the existing title is not sufficient to refuse registration. The refusal may occur if the convergence violates the right of protection to the existing press title.

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