Background
Nexus Solutions Inc. ("Nexus") develops CEMView, an emissions monitoring system ("CEMS") software used by heavy industry1. Vladimir Krougly joined Nexus as a software developer in 2006 with the primary responsibility of writing source code for CEMView. While still employed by Nexus, Krougly secretly developed, and later marketed, a competing CEMS product called "Limedas"2.
Nexus commenced an action claiming that it owned the copyright in Limedas by operation of s. 13(3) of the Copyright Act which provides that:
(3) Where the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright…
