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

Fecha: 10-Oct-2025

The relevance of RMG’s End User Terms

The relevance of RMG’s End User Terms

145.

Schedule 1 of RMG’s standard PAF licence sets out RMG’s End User Terms (‘EUT’) which provides the terms under which end users of the PAF are licensed.

146.

Part of IDDQD’s claim, discussed below, is that the RMG EUT were incorporated into the standard licence agreement entered into between IDDQD and Mr Smith. IDDQD alleges that Mr Smith was in breach of various terms of the RMG EUT.

147.

The defendants’ pleaded response was not to admit that the RMG EUT were incorporated into IDDQD’s standard agreement. Instead they argued that different RMG terms were published on IDDQD’s website, referred to by the defendants as the Royal Mail End User Licence Terms, or EULA. The EULA were said to be not sufficiently clear to be binding or enforceable and some of the terms relied on by IDDQD and that they are further unenforceable because they are in restraint of trade or contrary to Regulation 19(2) of the Database Regulations.

148.

The terms of the RMG EUT and what the defendants called the EULA are the same. The difference is that definitions in the RMG EUT as published by RMG are missing from the version annexed by IDDQD to its standard licence agreement. I will return to this below.

149.

Despite the defendants’ pleaded stance, in their draft skeleton and closing submissions the defendants accepted that they were bound by the RMG EUT. The point of this altered position was that the defendants now say that they were at all times licensed to use the PAF under the RMG EUT. In the written closing submissions drafted by Mr Smith, there was repeated reliance on the RMG EUT (albeit termed the EULA) under which the defendants were said to be licensed to use the PAF.

150.

It is now common ground that at least Mr Smith was bound by the RMG EUT. It is not common ground that the RMG EUT licensed the defendants to use the PAF for their GetAddress business.

151.

The RMG EUT as published by RMG contain the following definitions:

‘Data Extraction the extraction of PAF® Data or any part of it for the generation of new address records in a new or existing database

End User a single legal entity who you or a Licensee may permit to use PAF® Data through its Users in accordance with this Licence

End User Terms the terms set out in Schedule 1

Licensee a person whose use of PAF® Data you authorise further to this Licence, or whose use is authorised by such a person by way of a sub-licence granted further to this Licence (whether directly or by way of a chain of sub-licences) but not an End User

Solution a product or service or other solution which benefits from or incudes PAF® Data (including the provision of PAF® Data itself) in whatever form, however produced or distributed and whether or not including other functionality, services, software or data

User an individual authorised by an End User to use a Solution’

152.

The RMG EUT include the following:

‘1. End Users' permitted use of Solutions

End Users may freely use PAF® Data in Solutions in accordance with these End User Terms.

Conditions of use

(a)

End Users must not make copies of PAF® Data except as permitted by these End User Terms or reasonably necessary for back-up, security, business continuity and system testing purposes.

(b)

End Users may use PAF® Data for Data Extraction but Extracted Data:

(i)

may only be accessed by Users, and

(ii)

must not be supplied or any access to it provided to any third party.

…

(e)

Except as set out in these End User Terms, End Users must not:

(i)

transfer, assign, sell or licence Solutions or their use to any other person,

(ii)

use Solutions to create a product or service distributed or sold to any third party which relies on any use of PAF® Data, including copying, looking up or enquiring, publishing, searching, analysing, modifying and reformatting, or

(iii)

copy, reproduce, extract, reutilise or publish Solutions or any of them.

…

Personal rights

End User rights are personal, limited and non-transferable.’

153.

As appears from the terms I have quoted, the licence granted by RMG permits End Users use the PAF. The End User may be a licensee or sub-licensee of the contracting party, but it is the End User who is licensed to use the data. The End User is likely to be a company or firm, so the End User may authorise individuals, Users, to use a Solution. A Solution is a product or service which exploits the PAF.

154.

End Users may extract data from the PAF, that is to say their Users – their authorised individuals – may do so. But third parties may not be supplied with or given access to the data. This indicates that Users are not third parties, which makes sense if they are employees of the End User.

155.

Clause 2(e) restrains the End User from in particular (i) selling to others the use of a product or service which exploits the PAF and (ii) using such a product or service to create another such service for sale or distribution to third parties.

156.

Mr Smith, licensed as an End User, was permitted to extract PAF data to verify or correct the GetAddress Database if the data was used solely for that purpose. He was not permitted to use the PAF for incorporation in the GetAddress Database and then to market that database to third party customers in competition with RMG.

157.

The defendants did not benefit from a licence pursuant to the RMG EUT to carry out the acts complained of by RMG.