Australia’s Federal Court has awarded only nominal damages in a copyright infringement case involving the release of computer-aided design (CAD) drawings of the engineering design of a universal holding fixture (UHF) used in the production of aircraft wing panels.

In ACP Machinery Australia v. Aerospace Technologies of Australia and Boeing Aerostructures Australia [2013], Justice Christopher Jessup considered claims for compensatory damages under Section 115(2) and additional damages under Section 115(4) of Australia’s Copyright Act. An earlier court decision had found that the applicant’s drawings had been disclosed by the second respondent to a third party with which the applicant was negotiating a contract to supply actuators for use in the intended UHF.

The applicant maintained that the disclosure had jeopardized its ability to negotiate a higher price for its sale to the third party, because it would have insisted that disclosure of the drawings was conditional upon the third party accepting the applicant’s pricing.

Jessup, ruling that the third party would not have been interested in seeing the CAD drawings until  – and unless – it had awarded the contract to the applicant, awarded damages of A$10 (US$9) per Section 115(2) of the copyright act, and refused to award additional damages. He held further that no flagrant breach had occurred under Section 115(4) of the law, even though the disclosure to the third party had ben “casual to the point of being careless.”