Case No. IP-2017-000169

40.After Mr Kite left school he taught himself how to create computer programs and gained employment as a software developer. By 2008 he was working for a company called Synetrix Ltd. One of Synetrix’s clients was Netsweeper. Netsweeper offered Mr Kite a job by a letter dated 26 September 2008, an offer made with Synetrix’s knowledge and consent. The offer was accepted by Mr Kite. On 6 January 2009 Mr Kite started working at Netsweeper and on the same day he entered into a further written agreement with Netsweeper (‘the Ancillary Agreement’). 41.According to Mr Kite, in March 2009 he began to develop an idea of how to authenticate computer users independently of an IP address. He said that this was done in his own time, on his own equipment, as his own project. 42.On 30 March 2009 Mr Kite posted a summary of his authentication idea on an internal website used by Netsweeper (‘the First Intranet Post’). The internal website was only accessible to Netsweeper staff. Mr Kite’s idea included what was referred to as a ‘pending pool’. The pending pool stored requests to use a website from users who had been authenticated by the authentication portal. It allowed authenticated users to continue to access the relevant website pending such time as a cookie could be set in the browser on their computer. 43.Later on 30 March 2009 there was a Skype conversation between Mr Erb and Mr Kite followed by an email sent to Mr Kite by Mr Erb. Mr Erb was enthusiastic about Mr Kite’s idea but pointed out a difficulty: if the pending pool registered a request for a website which had been authenticated by one user, other unauthenticated users requesting the same website would be permitted access. Mr Erb suggested a solution, namely the authorization token idea (see steps (7) to (9) of the annotation of figure 5 above). Because this token worked by adding a message to the relevant URL, it was sometimes referred to as ‘URL mangling’. 44.Mr Kite continued to work on the idea and on 21 August 2009 posted an amended summary on Netsweeper’s internal website (‘the Second Intranet Post’). This was further edited on 23 September 2009. 45.Despite Mr Erb’s earlier enthusiasm, support for it from Netsweeper generally was limited. 46.In 2010 Mr Kite decided that he wanted to leave Netsweeper’s employment. Netsweeper agreed and as of 1 September 2010 he became a consultant, working with Netsweeper under a new agreement (‘the Consultancy Agreement’). 47.Mr Kite continued work on his user authentication idea, creating new software to operate a system embodying the idea which he named ‘Authent’ in October 2010. In November 2010 Mr Kite engaged a firm of patent attorneys to draft a patent application claiming his Authent system. On 2 November 2010 Prosyscor was incorporated to market Authent. 48.Meanwhile, in the early part of 2011 Netsweeper began work on a system which came to be called ‘Authenticated Override’. It was prompted by discussion with a potential customer, Education Network of America (‘ENA’). ENA provided computer network services to schools in the United States. In time Authenticated Override became an improved means of allowing varied levels of internet access to computers within a school using a single IP address. 49.According to Mr Kite, in May 2011 he realised that there was an opportunity to commercialise his Authent system through Netsweeper. There is no doubt that he and Netsweeper came to the view that there may be value in exchanging information about their respective proposed authentication systems. On 7 June 2011 Prosyscor and Netsweeper entered into a confidentiality agreement (‘the Confidentiality Agreement’) under which each was to disclose information to the other for evaluation only, under an obligation of confidence. 50.Mr Kite said that on the evening of the same day, 7 June 2011, there was a discussion by means of a Skype voice call. Mr Kite claimed that in the course of the call he disclosed confidential information about his Authent system to Mr Erb and Mr Graydon. Mr Erb said that no such call happened. 51.Netsweeper continued with the development of Authenticated Override. On 31 May and 4 June 2012 Netsweeper filed US provisional patent applications. These became priority documents for the PCT Application. 52.Mr Kite became aware of the PCT Application. On 30 August 2017 he assigned all his interest in the Authent system to Prosyscor and on 1 September 2017 Prosyscor started these proceedings.