Kalamazoo (Aust) Pty v Compact Business Systems Ltd: 1985

(Supreme Court of Queensland) The case concerned the copying of a collection of accounting forms which when used together made up an accounting system. Some of the forms were intended to be used in a peg-board system in which writing on the top form was reproduced on the lower forms in a stack, the forms being held in the correct register by a system of punched holes, pegs and a clamp. Various collections of forms were sold by the plaintiffs, each collection being adapted for a particular purpose.
Held: Layout, presentation and appearance may be the subject of copyright protection. A literary work is one that gives ‘information, instruction or pleasure in the form of literary enjoyment’ and that is not a question of literary merit. Each collection or group of forms, designed to be used with each other, was entitled to protection as a compilation of the constituent forms even though the constituent forms were not wholly literary.

Judges:

Thomas J

Citations:

(1985) 5 IPR 213, (1985) 84 FLR 101

Statutes:

Copyright Act 1911

Jurisdiction:

Australia

Citing:

CitedBaker v Selden 1879
(US Supreme Court) Blank account books were not the subject of copyright. . .

Cited by:

CitedNavitaire Inc v Easyjet Airline Co and Another ChD 30-Jul-2004
The claimant alleged infringement of its copyright in a software system which dealt with airline reservations. It was not said that any code had been copied, but merely that an express requirement of the defendant ordering the system was that it . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Intellectual Property

Updated: 05 July 2022; Ref: scu.220332