Two neighbours engaged an architect to draw up plans for a building at the rear of their houses. He charged them the full RIBA rate for the plans. They did not ask the architect to build the house or supervise the project but handed the plans to a builder, who made minor amendments, then submitted them as his own design. The architect sued for infringement of the copyright in the plans. He appealed an award of only nominal damages.
Held: The nominal award was correct. The contract included an implied term that the land owners would be free to use the plans to build the house, including necessary licences. The attribution was wrongful, but was not the source of damage.
Judges:
Lord Denning M.R., Widgery and Megaw L.JJ
Citations:
[1971] 1 QB 78, [1971] 2 WLR 503, [1971] 1 All ER 468
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Beck v Montana Constructions Pty Ltd 1964
(New South Wales) . .
Cited by:
Cited – Robin Ray v Classic FM Plc PatC 18-Mar-1998
Contractor and Client Copyrights
The plaintiff had contributed a design for a system of classifying and selecting tracks to be played on a radio station. He did so under a consultancy contract.
Held: A Joint authorship claim required that the contributor had made some direct . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property, Construction, Damages, Contract
Updated: 10 June 2022; Ref: scu.174046