Prof. Ardemis Boghossian v IOP Publishing Limited & Anor

Joint authorship of a literary work requires collaboration, authorship, contribution and non-distinctness under section 10(1) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The court must examine the nature of the co-operation and whether the alleged contribution expresses the contributor’s own intellectual creation. Merely supervising research, suggesting technical changes, providing editorial comments or appearing in an author list is insufficient. In scientific papers, technical constraints may leave little or no room for creative freedom. A contribution must also be expressed in the final work. The burden remains on the person asserting joint authorship. Where publication was separately authorised by agreement, that consent may provide an alternative answer to an infringement claim.

Professor Boghossian claimed that she was a joint author of a scientific paper prepared while Dr Djokic worked in her laboratory at EPFL. A modified version was later published by IOP Publishing in Nanotechnology with Dr Djokic and Mr Goswami named as authors.

The claim concerned literary copyright in the paper. The principal issues were whether Professor Boghossian had made an authorial contribution sufficient to constitute joint authorship and, alternatively, whether an agreement reached during an EPFL mediation authorised publication of the later paper. IOP also sought an indemnity and contribution from Dr Djokic.

1. Strike-out application. The application to strike out Dr Djokic’s Part 20 defence under CPR 39.3(1) was refused. The discretion should not be exercised where strike-out would prejudice IOP by depriving it of evidence which could otherwise be relied upon as hearsay under CPR 32.5(5). The defence was not struck out despite Dr Djokic’s absence from trial.
2. Joint authorship. Under section 10(1) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, the relevant inquiry required collaboration, authorship, contribution and non-distinctness. Following Kogan v Martin, the court had to determine the nature of the co-operation which resulted in the work and could not focus merely on who fixed the words in writing.
3. Professor Boghossian’s proposed structure for the paper, suggested literature, technical comments and alleged manuscript amendments were not proved to be authorial contributions expressing her own intellectual creation. The paper’s orthodox scientific structure left no sufficient room for creative freedom. The alleged manuscript changes were neither preserved nor described, preventing the court from assessing them. A contribution which does not appear in the final work is irrelevant.
4. The presence of Professor Boghossian’s name on a conference poster and draft author list did not establish authorship. Academic practice may involve listing proposed co-authors before their contributions are complete, and the burden of proving authorship remained on the claimant.
5. Professor Boghossian therefore failed to establish joint authorship on the balance of probabilities. Her copyright infringement claim was dismissed.
6. Alternative consent finding. Even if Professor Boghossian had been a joint author, the mediation agreement permitted Dr Djokic to publish the Skew Model paper after a maximum period of 14 months if her paper had not been published. The agreement concerned the paper substantially corresponding to the Draft Paper, including the computational model in R. Publication was therefore consented to.
7. IOP’s Part 20 claim for an indemnity against Dr Djokic was dismissed consequentially.

First-instance decision. No appellate history was stated in the judgment.