Standalone strike out applications are fairly rare in the IPEC. However, since it concerned a pure point of law, the judge, his Honour Judge Hacon, was prepared to decide the point at an early stage and his decision gives an interesting summary of the law on the distinction between ideas and expression of ideas in software copyright.

Background

Edozo and Valos are competitors in the property space providing valuations and other information about real property. Both parties offer their customers access to software based systems via platforms which supply customers with reports. These reports are referred to as “Valos Reports” and “Edozo Reports” and the steps experienced by the users of each platform as the “Valos Steps” and “Edozo Steps”.

Edozo issued proceedings against Valos seeking declarations of non-infringement, to which Valos issued a defence and counterclaim. This decision concerns Edozo’s application to strike out parts of Valos’s defence and counterclaim.

Valos submitted that the Edozo Steps reproduce the Valos Steps in substantial part and that, as such, the Edozo Reports were indirectly copied from the Valos computer programs and source code in which copyright subsisted. Valos did not allege that Edozo ever had access to the source code or that there was any implied allegation that the Edozo source code was in any way similar to the Valos source code.

Edozo submitted that copyright in a computer program protects the skill, judgment and labour in devising the source code rather than the functionality of the program (for example, the Valos Steps and Edozo Steps) experienced by the users of each platform. As such, Valos’s case of indirect copying by reason of similarities between the Valos Steps and Edozo Steps was bad in law.

The IPEC’s approach

Whilst accepting that a party may infringe copyright by being at the end of a chain of copying, his Honour Judge Hacon agreed that Valos’s allegation of indirect infringement of the literary copyright in the Valos computer programs and source code must be struck out.

To reach this conclusion, he first explored the often cited, but hard to pin down boundary between an idea and its expression in copyright law. As he explained, the boundary is really an issue of substantiality. If what is taken is an idea too general to constitute a substantial part of the idea embodied in the copyright work, there is no infringement.

In relation specifically to computer programs, the judge restated the findings from cases such as SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1482 that the functionality of a computer program is not a form of expression and he endorsed Mr Justice Pumfrey’s analogy in Navitaire Inc v easyJet Airline Co Ltd [2004] EWHC 1725 (Ch) of two chefs who independently devise recipes that create the same pudding. The similarity of the puddings does not make one recipe and infringement of the other. In turn, two independently created computer programs can produce similar results without copying.

As a result, the judge determined that the Valos Steps formed part of the functionality of the Valos computer programs and were not a form of expression of the relevant intellectual creation (the Valos source code). Therefore, the Valos Steps were not protected by copyright in the source code and the copying of the Valos Steps in creating the Edozo Steps was not capable of being an act of copyright infringement in the Valos source code.

Conclusion

Copyright does not extend to functional features. Therefore, if protection is required for a technical solution such as a computer software program, copyright in the program may not be sufficient. Instead, rights holders need to consider other forms of protection such as patent protection or copyright protection in the other parts of the technical solution such as the software code or graphics.

In short

The decision reinforces the boundary between the expression of ideas, which are protected by copyright law and the ideas themselves, which are not. Competitors remain free to build functionally equivalent software, provided they do so independently without taking the protected expression.

Case details

Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Decision level: IPEC
Parties: Edozo Limited v Valos (UK) Limited
Date: 21 January 2026
Citation: [2026] EWHC 93 (IPEC)
Decision: dycip.com/2026-ewhc-93-ipec

Related decisions

• SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd, [2013] EWCA Civ 1482: dycip.com/2013-ewhc-civ-1482
• Navitaire Inc v easyJet Airline Co Ltd, [2004] EWHC 1725 (Ch): dycip.com/2004-ewhc-1725-ch