Skycope Technologies Inc. v. Jia, 2023 BCSC 1288

The plaintiff, Skycope Technologies Inc., is a company developing anti-drone detection and defence technology. Skycope alleged that the defendants—who were former employees of Skycope and Bluvec Technologies Inc., an anti-drone technology company founded by the defendant Jack Jia, Skycope’s former chief technology officer—misused Skycope’s confidential and proprietary information in developing and marketing Bluvec’s anti-drone technology, in breach of contractual and common law duties, and unfairly competed with Skycope. The defendants denied the claims in their entirety, including by denying that Skycope’s confidential information was used in the development and marketing of Bluvec’s anti-drone technology.

After a 21-day trial, Justice Iyer found that Bluvec, Mr. Jia, and one other employee had misused Skycope’s confidential information in developing Bluvec’s anti-drone technology, and that Mr. Jia breached his fiduciary duties to Skycope by developing and marketing competing anti-drone technology through Bluvec. Most significantly, Justice Iyer found that the only reasonable explanation for the substantial similarities between Skycope’s and Bluvec’s anti-drone technology source codes could was that Bluvec developed its source code with the benefit of an electronic copy of Skycope’s source code. Justice Iyer also found that these defendants breached an interlocutory injunction issued earlier in the proceeding, which restrained them from, inter alia, using or developing any anti-drone software based on Skycope’s source code.

The full reasons for judgment can be found here. Skycope has brought a limited appeal from the trial judge’s decision on the counterclaim and on the issue of whether it Skycope was entitled to punitive damages in its claim. That appeal is ongoing.