RK Nathan J:

The Product

[1] Unlike the face of Helen of Troy that launched the might of a thousand ships, the plaintiffs launched this suit upon the sails of 6 causes of action to protect their Stopcard Auto Theft Device (Stopcard). Stopcard can be described as a device which enables the owner of a car to stop the car from being driven away by an unauthorised driver by simply picking up the phone and dialling some digits.

Its Function

[2] In summary it functions as follows:

(1) Upon the theft of a car, the owner who will be given a pin number will have to call the paging company, identify himself via his pin-number and dial the relevant digit assigned to the required function, for example, 1 for "STOP". The operating system thereafter will receive this message and transfer it into a radio signal. The IVM in the relevant car will receive the radio signal, interpret the message, that is, "Stop" and carry out the function required, that is, "Stop". The car, if moving, will thereafter slowly become immobile.

(2) Should the car come to a stop, the whole system requires that upon ignition, secret procedures will have to be carried out to ensure the continued running of the car. The failure of such procedures being carried out will result in the car not continuing to run. As such it prevents unauthorised third parties who will be unaware of the secret procedures from re-starting the car that has been brought to a halt by the alarm.

Its Unique Features

[3] The Stopcard has 3 unique features:

(1) The immobilisation of an already moving vehicle via radio signals from a paging network wherein the said immobilisation takes place over a period of time thus enabling the car to stop slowly.

(2) A secret procedure to be followed upon ignition of the vehicle for the continued running of the vehicle.

(3) A system which enables a single pager service to access unlimited pagers.

[4] Whilst the first two features are self-explanatory the third feature needs to be explained. Instead of using a single capcode or in simple terms a pager telephone number to activate each device, the Stopcard anti-theft device was a device wherein a single capcode was used to activate an almost unlimited number of devices. This process was known as cloning or duplicating capcodes and was economically viable as one would only have to purchase one capcode or telephone number from the paging company as opposed to one capcode (or telephone number) for every device on the market. The way in which this is done is that the identifying part of the capcode is contained in the message, so that when a radio signal is transmitted, the first part of the capcode will activate all the IVMs but only upon the IVM reading the message part of the signal, will the relevant IVM at which the message is directed identify itself.

[5] It is the defendants' case that its "Stopcar" device (called the MR5000) was derived from the 1st defendant's own technology for the remote switching of street lights, that device being the MR100. To that device, already on the market prior to the Stopcard device, and totally unrelated to it, the 1st defendant contended that it added an alarm system for fitting inside the car.

The Parties

The 1st And 3rd Plaintiffs

[6] The product was, I find, pioneered by one Keith Russell (PW1). He invented the idea of duplication of capcodes. From his evidence I find that he became aware of the need for such a device whilst running a security company called "Strike Australia". He then worked with one Laurie Benjamin to refine the said product and eventually produced a crude receiver. With this he approached the 1st plaintiff in order to further develop and finalise this crude receiver into a workable product which the plaintiff did, having taken two years with an approximate cost of A$250,000. PW1 is an employee of the 3rd plaintiff and also a director of Afftcorp Pty Ltd which owns all the shares in the 3rd plaintiff. It is a fact that all intellectual property rights in the said pr