Successful legal action is helping electrical safety testing specialist Seaward Electronic Ltd to step-up the fight against illegal online sales of its specialist software products.
In November Seaward successfully obtained a judgment against Mr Michael Mellors from Nottinghamshire for the sale of PatGuard programmes on Ebay which infringed Seaward’s intellectual property rights.
PatGuard is a proprietary portable appliance testing data management software system and is a well-established market leading brand.
Seaward was alerted to the sale of the product on the internet and in a judgment issued on 13 November 2006 at Nottingham County Court, Judge Reeson ordered that Mr Mellors pay Seaward a sum representing an account of the profits he made as a result of the act of infringement of Seaward’s copyright in the PATGuard programme, together with Seaward’s costs, disbursements and interest.
Mr Mellors sold over 20 infringing copies of the software over several months resulting in lost potential revenue of over £10,000.
In addition to this case, Seaward is also actively pursuing other parties which are illegally selling copies of Seaward’s software and recently made an out of court settlement with another individual selling the software on Ebay.
Mark Marsh, Seaward Group Finance Director, said: “The company is very happy with the outcome of the legal action and we intend pursuing the individuals who have purchased the software from Mr Mellors.
“As part of a zero tolerance policy on software theft we actively monitor the internet for illegal sales that infringe our rights and this example should act as a serious warning to all those involved in supplying and purchasing unauthorised Seaward products on line.”
Seaward is also in talks with the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) to identify additional ways in which genuine software can be protected.