UK: Court reject copyright infringement and breach of confidence

The High Court has rejected a claim by a computer games designer, Mr Burrows, that a director of a company called Circle Studio Limited (Circle) which had previously employed him, had infringed copyright in a game called "Traktrix" which Mr Burrows had proposed to them, or breached confidence, by trying to exploit a substantially revised version of the game. Norris J found that there was no breach of confidence because the proposal for "Traxtrix" was not disclosed in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence; in disclosing the idea to Circle, Mr Burrows was doing what he was paid to do as a games designer, and there was no evidence that he told Circle that it was an idea that he had thought up before joining Circle. Norris J rejected the copyright claim because, among other things, Mr Burrows argued that Circle had copied significant parts of his original document recording the concept for the game in a later design document relating to it. However, since nobody at Circle knew of the original document, if the design document incorporated parts of it, it was because Mr Burrows himself incorporated them. This was not a grant of an implied licence by Mr Burrows, but a unilateral act requiring no agreement on Circle's part.

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