Kavinda Herath/Stuff
Stabicraft chief executive David Glen at the factory in Invercargill. It is in a dispute with another Invercargill boat company Sea King.
An award-winning Southland boat company has unsuccessfully tried to detain a boat that came into the country in a move it says was to protect its intellectual property rights.
Stabicraft Marine Ltd lodged several notices requesting detention of pirated copies (NRDPCs) with customs, under the section 7 of the Copyright Act 1994.
Stabicraft’s case was against Sea King Boats Ltd, its managing director Hamish King and New Zealand Customs Service CEO (person required to be served).
A High Court judgement from a September 6 hearing, says the detained boat was built by a company in China and was then shipped to Sea King, which is also based in Invercargill.
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The boat arrived on December 22, 2021, and as a result of notices lodged by Stabicraft, customs detained the boat and inspected it on January 16, 2022 and made a determination that it appeared to be a pirated copy of one of the work’s contained in the NRDPCs.
Sea King managing director Hamish King says the boat should be released because Stabicraft did not comply with the boarder protection procedures and there was no seriously arguable case the detained boat was a pirated copy.
After Customs made a determination notice Stabicraft had 10 working days to file proceedings under section 141(3).
King argued that did not happen in the correct timeframe and that the first time Stabicraft served proceedings was when it filed an amended statement of claim on March 16, 2022.
Justice Doogue, in his judgement, says counsel agree that Stabicraft’s statement of claim did not expressly reference s141(3) of the Act and not did it expressly seek an order from the Court that the detained boat “is a specified item that is a pirated copy”. Instead, the relief sought was a declaration of infringement under sections 12, 29-31 of the Act.
Sea King’s submissions say Stabicraft’s statement of claim does not qualify as a proceeding under pt 7 of the Act, and boats Stabicraft referenced related to Explorer 600N, Explorer 750XL and the Explorer 900, while the detained boat was an Easy Craft 9.0.
Justice J Doogue ruled that the boat must be released to Sea King because Stabicraft did not serve Customs with “properly constituted proceedings for the purposes of s 141 (3).
Lawyers for Stabicraft argued that Justice Doogue hold his decision for 20 working days to allow an appeal to be lodged, while Sea King’s lawyers said that length would be “seriously injurious” to business and five days should suffice for filing an appeal.
Justice Doogue stayed the ruling for 10 working days, and said lodging an appeal would hold the effect of his judgement until the outcome was determined in the Court of Appeal.
