Upaid Systems Ltd v Telstra Corporation Ltd

The Federal Court of Australia was asked to decide if particulars of patent infringement provided by Upaid Systems Ltd were adequate or if they needed to be further defined. Upaid had alleged that Telstra Corporation Limited infringed several of its patents related to convergent communications platforms and methods for mobile and electronic commerce. The central legal issue was whether Upaid had complied with the Federal Court Rules requiring at least one instance of each type of infringement to be particularised in the statement of claim. The Court found that Upaid's particulars were insufficient as they did not specify the acts by Telstra that constituted an infringement of the claims in the patents. The particulars were too general and did not descend to the specific acts that would constitute infringements. The Court held that the particulars did not comply with the requirements of Rule 34.42(3) of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth). Consequently, the Court ordered that the amended particulars of infringement be struck out and gave Upaid until 28 February 2014 to file further amended particulars of infringement. The Court also ordered Upaid to pay Telstra's costs of the interlocutory application and listed the proceeding for further directions on 17 March 2014. The Court noted that Upaid had advanced a large number of claims and suggested that this might lead to special costs orders if found to be superfluous.