Successful Representation оf the Software Developer in the Dispute on the Exclusive Rights Enforcement

Client Novolabsystem LLC (Russia)

Description

Client is one of the leading software developers in medicine, laboratory research and medical analyses.

In 2021, the Client (the Defendant) received a claim from Roslabsystem LLC (the Plaintiff), which asserted that one of the computer programmes developed by the Defendant was based on the source code of a computer programme owned by the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff petitioned the court to enjoin the Defendant from using the computer programme at issue and to pay compensation for software infringement.

Upon receipt of the claim, the Client turned to us to defend its interests in court.

Solution

Working closely with the Client, our lawyers developed an effective strategy of enforcement of exclusive rights. First, they worked hard with the evidence base. In particular, they collected the necessary evidence, including opinions and reviews from technical experts in IT and programming sphere, which demonstrated that the Client's computer programme did not contain any fragments of the Plaintiff's source code used in the litigious software and was not a modification of the same.

The independent line of exclusive rights defence, which was established by our firm’s experts, was to demonstrate that the Plaintiff’s behaviour should be considered as abuse of procedural rights, which is prohibited by law and is an independent ground for dismissal of the claim.

Result

In 2022, after a long-lasting dispute in the first instance and appellate courts, our firm’s lawyers were able to convince the judges that the Defendant had not unlawfully used the litigious computer programme, because it was using its own software, therefore, was exploiting its own exclusive rights. As a result, the Plaintiff’s claim was dismissed and the court of appeals upheld the decision of the court of first instance, by granting protection to the Client's interests.

Following the end of the dispute on the merits, our experts commenced court proceedings to recover the legal costs, which were incurred by the Client in this case. Our successful handling of this case enabled the Client to continue its legitimate business related to development and promotion of specialized and unique software on the medical market.