Catalina Software Ltd v Professional IT (Logistics) Ltd
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- HIS HONOUR JUDGE HACON
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Intellectual Property Law
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The claimant alleges copyright infringement of its software 'Freedom', but initially failed to clearly identify the type of copyright work. The clarifications made by the claimant led to the conclusion that an arguable case of copyright infringement exists, thus defeating the application to strike out the particulars of claim. The court directed that substantial amendments be made to the particulars to reflect the clarified case.
Judgment
JUDGE HACON: This is an application as part of a CMC to strike out the Particulars of Claim as disclosing no arguable case pursuant to CPR 3.4(2)(a), “ that the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing or defending the claim”.
The first point made is that the Particulars of Claim do not or at least do not sufficiently identify the copyright work relied on, and a number of points are made. In particular paragraph 2, although it refers to the claimant’s reliance on its “Freedom” copyright work, nowhere in that paragraph or elsewhere in the Particulars of Claim does the claimant identify the particular type of copyright work on which it relies, in particular which type as set out in section 3(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It is said that this not taking a pedantic point because elsewhere in the Particulars of Claim it is not clear whether the claimant is relying on just a computer program or alternatively a database or both, or possibly a table or compilation as one alternative type of copyright work on which may be claimed.
It seems to me that there is a lot of force in that. If one goes to paragraph 6 of the Particulars of Claim it is said (this is an allegation which leads towards the allegation of infringement):
“As part of the Agreement, the Defendant has (and at all material times had had) access to Freedom (including, for the avoidance of doubt, to matters such as program code, database schemas, data logic, window definitions, report definitions and menu structures for the same).”
I think any reader might suppose that the type of copyright work being claimed extends at least as far as a computer program and a database, if not significantly further than that. Moreover, paragraph 7, which has six subparagraphs, appears to allege infringement by copying the Freedom program “and/or works that are derived therefrom”, which again would suggest that even in relation to a computer program what is being relied on is not merely the program itself but, as part of the copyright work alleged to have been infringed, derivations of the Freedom program.
Mr Hughes today has said in fact his client’s claim is, or at least now will be, limited to a claim in relation to a copyright work taking the form of a computer program only, i.e. that defined in section 3(1)(b) of the 1988 Act. He says that a copy of the source code, which is the copyright work relied on, will be supplied to the defendant and that that source