Legal stoush ventures into uncharted territory THE AUSTRALIAN...

Legal stoush ventures into uncharted territory

THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 18, 2014 12:00AM

Nearmap (NEA) 56.5c, White Star Resources (WSR) 5.5c

THE start of a high-altitude patent dogfight?

White Star’s realignment from Chilean copper to aerial mapping has not gone unnoticed by the runaway imaging house Nearmap, which is worried that its intellectual property may have been breached.

Nearmap this week revealed it filed a court application in September for preliminary discovery of documents against Spookfish, which plans to backdoor list via White Star Resources.

Nearmap said this was to “allow Nearmap to assess if a breach of Nearmap’s (intellectual property) rights has occurred’’.

The application also named Spookfish principals and former Nearmap employees Simon Cope and John Perkins, as well as former Nearmap consultant Michael John Von Bertoush.

On Monday the NSW Supreme Court dismissed Spookfish’s application to move the proceedings to an “appropriate forum’’.

According to White Star: “Spookfish maintains that (its) revolutionary technology has been appropriately developed with new provisional patents lodged recently to address existing market needs.’’

White Star chief Jason Marinko describes the action as “pretty standard” in the technology industry: “If someone claims to have a competitive technology you want to find out about it.’’

Shares in Nearmap, formerly Ipernica, have come from nowhere on the back of its subscription-based model, attracting users for whom the free Google Maps doesn’t cut it. But the shares have marked time over the last year.

Marinko says the action will not affect the “imminent” release of a prospectus, ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled meeting of White Star shareholders to approve the merger.

White Star has already completed a $5.07 million raising to fund the Spookfish purchase (Navitas chief Rod Jones is a notable investor, as is Internode founder Simon Hackett).

Spookfish claims its IP enables quality pics at a high altitude, which allows more ground to be covered.

In our view the legal stoush could amount to completely nothing — or absolutely something. In any event, it’s an unhelpful factor to have hanging over an IPO.

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