The Federal Court of Australia has granted Melbourne reseller CPL Notting Hill an appeal against paying $2.6 million in copyright-related damages to Microsoft.
The ruling overturns a judgement made in August last year, when Judge Alexander Street awarded Microsoft close to $2.6 million in damages after finding that CPL infringed on its copyright.
The retailer then filed an appeal the following month, claiming the ruling was inconsistent with the original claims the software giant made.
Justice David John O’Callaghan last week ruled that the case be retried in the Federal Circuit Court with a different judge, and that Microsoft pay the costs of CPL’s appeal.
“The court orders that the appeal be allowed, [and that] the orders made by the primary judge on 29 August 2018 be set aside,” court documents read.
CRN has reached out to CPL Notting Hill for comment.
CPL claims Street made findings and granted relief that were not based on Microsoft’s claims and that the evidence as a whole was not taken into account.
Proceedings date back to 2016, when Microsoft claimed that CPL sold a computer with a fraudulent copy of Windows 7 Professional installed and affixed with a Microsoft authorised refurbisher certificate of authenticity without a license.
Street ordered CPL to pay Microsoft a combined $2.25 million for infringing its copyright, plus another $325,000 for breaching the Trade Marks Act.
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