IT Human Resources PLC (‘ITHR’) were represented by Jonathan Hill in their claim against Mr David Land, a former director, for infringing their copyright in bespoke recruitment database software Mr Land had written for them.
Morgan J held that Mr Land had infringed the copyright in the software by providing it to a competitor company between the dates of 1999 and 2003. A further infringing copy of the database schema used by the software was made in 2006. It was found that Mr Land had acted dishonestly in providing the software to the competitor against the wishes of ITHR’s managing director and that he was in breach of his fiduciary duties as a director. This meant that the limitation period did start to run until the infringements were discovered in 2009 and that the claims were therefore not time barred.
Jonathan Hill was instructed by DMB Law.