De minimis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the Latin expression. For the a cappella group, see De Minimis.
De minimis is a Latin expression meaning about minimal things, which is mostly used as part of de minimis non curat praetor or de minimis non curat lex, in the sense that law is not interested in trivial matters.
De minimis, in a more formal legal sense, means something which is unworthy of the law's attention.
For example, in European Union Competition law companies which indulge in anti-competitive practices, but which have a market share of under 5% often escape censure by the European Commission because such activities are regarded as de minimis.
In risk assessment "de minimis" refers to a level of risk which is too small to be concerned with -- some refer to this as a "virtually safe" level.
Courts will not uphold copyright on modified public domain material if the changes are deemed to be "de minimis." For instance, a person who attempts to assert a copyright in a document in the public domain after merely correcting the spelling mistakes in the document would be denied as that person's contribution to the public domain text would be judged "de minimis." Similarly, courts have dismissed copyright infringement cases on the grounds that the alleged infringer's use of the copyrighted work was so insignificant as to be "de minimis."
Under U.S. tax rules, an investor in a debt instrument issued at a discount generally is required to include that discount in income on a current basis, but not if the discount is "de minimis" (generally, that means the discount is less than 0.0025 × principal × number of complete years to maturity).
De minimis can also be applied to drug and alcohol searches.
