Agricultural & General Aviation Pty Ltd v Aerodata Holdings Pty Ltd

Agricultural & General Aviation Pty Ltd (the appellant) appealed to the Full Federal Court against a decision of a single judge that dismissed its application for a declaration that it had not infringed Aerodata Holdings Pty Ltd's (the respondent) copyright. The dispute concerned the use of certain aeronautical data, specifically flight path information, which the appellant had incorporated into its own software. The respondent alleged that this incorporation constituted copyright infringement.

The Full Federal Court was required to determine whether the respondent held a valid copyright in the aeronautical data, and if so, whether the appellant's use of that data in its software amounted to an infringement of that copyright. A key issue was whether the data, once published and widely available, retained copyright protection, and whether the appellant's creation of a new compilation of data, which included the respondent's data, constituted an unlawful reproduction.

The Court held that the respondent did not hold copyright in the aeronautical data. It reasoned that the data, being factual in nature and comprising information that was publicly available and collected by various entities, did not possess the requisite originality for copyright protection. The Court applied the principle that copyright subsists in the expression of ideas, not in the ideas or factual information themselves. Therefore, the appellant's use of the data, even if it involved reproduction, did not infringe any copyright held by the respondent. The appeal was allowed.