Case Nos: IL-2023-000080 and IL-2024-000038 - [2025] EWHC 2561 (Ch)

Aside from more specific defences, the defendants’ case on infringement was that no part of the Historic PAF was copied into GetAddress or, if any was, it did not form a substantial part of the Historic PAF.

I have found in relation to database right that Mr Smith copied a substantial part of the PAF for creating, maintaining and updating the GetAddress Database. The difference is that the Historic PAF had been amended by both deletion and addition by the time that a later version of the PAF, the product of the deletions and additions, was copied.

The evidence given at trial was that most addresses, including postcodes, do not change over time. It seems to me to be likely that data derived from the Historic PAF and taken by Mr Smith from the PAF in its later form embodied sufficient skill and effort expended by the authors of the Historic PAF, skill and effort appropriated by Mr Smith for Codeberry’s benefit, for the Historic PAF to have been copied in substantial part. Subject to the defences considered below, RMG’s copyright in the Historic PAF was infringed by the acts of copying part of the Historic PAF.

The creation and sale of the GetAddress Database led to infringement by issuing the relevant part of the Historic PAF to the public, communicating that part to the public and adapting it to create GetAddress.

The defendants’ argument that RMG consented to their use of the Historic PAF is rejected for the same reasons given in relation to alleged consent to use of the PAF discussed above.