Technical Systems triumph over infringement lawsuit:
As was pointed out by the plaintiff in its heads of argument, the moral underpinning for the action is based on the injunctions that “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not reap that which thou hast not sowed”. The plaintiff is Technical Systems (TS) which manufactures conveyor-driven feed systems for poultry and other livestock. These consist principally of two products: poultry feed chain and a spiral wire product known as auger. The chain is used as a conveyor belt to transport feed to battery chickens in a trough. Christiaan Kurz (CK) was employed by the plaintiff as a plant engineer from 2001 to 2009, when he resigned, and he trades under Feed Chain Industries and is also the director of CQuiptech and was involved in the establishment of CGC industries (the defendants, with CK’s friend and business partner, Carl William Richter). A total of 23 witnesses, which included several mechanical, process and design engineers, draughtsmen, tool-setters and toolmakers, testified: 16 for the plaintiff and 7 for the defendants.
In setting up a competing plant utilising the confidential information to replicate the plaintiff’s confidential processes the defendants acted unlawfully. By the time CK was taken into the plaintiff’s employ it was already producing feed chain utilising the processes it had developed, and these were simply refined during the years that he worked for the plaintiff. As for CK’s purported reliance on the constitutional rights set out in sections 10 (dignity) and 22 (freedom of trade) of the Constitution, neither of these sections grant a licence to an ex-employee to steal or misappropriate valuable confidential information and trade secrets of his employer (on which the heart of his enterprise has been built over many years), and a right to use them.
In terms of section 7 of the Copyright Act 98 of 1978, direct infringement occurs when a protected work is reproduced “in any manner or form”. In short, they reproduced every material aspect of the works in which the plaintiff enjoyed copyright, and that accounts for the substantial similarity in the parties’ works. Enforcement of the order justifies that the defendants shall not commence the manufacture, marketing, offering for sale, sale or export of (1) feed chain or (2) equipment or components with which to make feed chain. The defendants shall be liable jointly and severally to pay all costs of the plaintiff in this matter.
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https://lnkd.in/e8w2Eyxn?trk=public_post-text
