Aviator Llc & Ors v Spribe Oü

Facts

The First Claimant and the Fifth Party are Georgian companies, the Sixth Party is a Georgian citizen, the Second and Third Claimants are Maltese companies, and the defendant, Spribe, is an Estonian company. The case concerns online "crash games". In January 2019 a company associated with Aviator launched a crash game in Georgia under the Aviator Image, a logo containing an aeroplane device. Spribe had created the software. From December 2019 Spribe authorised distribution of its own crash game outside Georgia, including the United Kingdom from February 2020, using its own image and aeroplane device. Aviator claim copyright in the Aviator Image and the Aeroplane Device, alleging copying and infringement in the UK, Gibraltar and all Berne Convention countries other than Georgia, and seek invalidity of Spribe's UK trade marks. Spribe counterclaims for trade mark infringement, passing off and copyright infringement, and has obtained an interim injunction restraining Aviator's UK launch. In separate Georgian proceedings the First Claimant successfully challenged a Georgian trade mark of Spribe's on the basis that its use would infringe Aviator's copyrights; Spribe's appeal failed in the Supreme Court of Georgia. Aviator pleaded issue estoppel from that litigation. Spribe said the law governing each copyright claim, by Article 8(1) of the Rome II Regulation, governed whether any estoppel arose. Michael Tappin KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, agreed with Spribe, and Aviator appealed with his permission.