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Studies . Copyright ownership – design drawings made by employee
26-09-2007
Under the Copyright Act, without agreement to the contrary, an employer will own copyright in literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works made by an employee during the course of his or her employment with the employer.
In Fleming v Fletcher Concrete & Infrastructure Limited, a former sales manager of Fletchers claimed that his ex-employer had infringed the copyright in his design drawings for a novel cattlestop, when it converted the drawings into engineering drawings and commercialised the product.
The High Court held that the drawings were artistic works in which copyright could subsist. However, it accepted that Fleming had not been employed in a design capacity, nor did he carry out any of the drawings during working hours. Therefore, in this case the drawings were not made “during the course of employment” and the court held that the employee owned copyright in the artistic works.
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