Paymaster wins case against GraceKennedy Remittance
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Paymaster Jamaica Limited is now to receive damages after the Court of Appeal overturned a copyright ruling in favour of GraceKennedy Remittance Services.
The Court of Appeal ruled today that Paymaster owns the copyright to the software programme it uses in its bill payment business and ordered that the matter go to the Supreme Court for damages to be assessed in Paymaster’s favour.
However, the court dismissed Paymaster’s appeal against computer programmer, Paul Lowe.
Audrey Marks, who is hailed as pioneering the bills payment business model with the 1997 launch of Paymaster Jamaica, filed the lawsuit against GraceKennedy in 2001, claiming that the conglomerate had used her business plan and infringed her copyright, to launch its competing bills payment subsidiary, Bill Express, in 2000.
Marks also sued programer Lowe, who shared with GraceKennedy the software which made Paymaster’s operations a reality.
But the Supreme Court ruled against her in 2010.
Paul Henry