Sealegs wins injunction against rival system

Amphibious technology company Sealegs International has won an injunction preventing marketing of a rival system pending the trial of its breach of copyright claim next September.

In a High Court judgment delivered late yesterday, Justice Mary Peters granted orders restraining engineering firm Orion Marine, developer of the competing product, as well as boatbuilder Smuggler Marine, producer of a vessel using the Orion system.

In a statement to the NZX, Sealegs said it was pleased with the outcome.

"We now look forward to a successful trial,” said a spokesman.

Sealegs alleges breach of copyright contained in 68 drawings of its three-legged retractable wheel system, saying substantial parts of Orion’s system are objectively similar.

In an affidavit, Sealegs chief technology officer Maurice Bryham said there were similarities between the hydraulic lift cylinders, the wheel fork, the location of the motor and several other features.

Justice Peters said she accepted the defendants’ submission that there were differences in some elements of the design. However, “I have made a visual comparison between the two … and I am satisfied that there is a serious issue to be tried.”

The judge said a claim for infringement would require Sealegs to show an objective similarity between its works and the Orion system and a causal connection between the works and the infringing work. The works must be the source of the infringing work; and reproduction of all the works or of a substantial part of them.

On the causal connection, the judge cited evidence from Orion employee Vladan Zubcic that its system was the product of independent design.

“As yet, however, the defendants have not disclosed the contemporaneous documents that would bear out that evidence. The similarities to which I have referred and the intimate knowledge that the fourth to eighth defendants have as regards the Sealegs system are sufficient to establish a serious issue.”

The fourth to eighth defendants are Orion employees Darren Leybourne, Gordon Lee, Mr Zubcic, Warren Farr and Paul Hood, who are all former employees of Sealegs.

Mr Leybourne told NBR they would be meeting lawyers this morning to consider the judge’s decision.

The substantive trial is scheduled to run for four weeks from September 25 next year.