Infosys given deadline for handing over source code in Qudos case

Tech company accused of copy and paste job for Australian Military Bank contract

Credit: ID 117583330 © Tampatra1 | Dreamstime.com

Infosys has been given until 3 September to hand over a range of source code to Qudos Bank as part of an intellectual property case currently before the Federal Court.

Qudos last year launched action against the system integrator over concerns that Infosys may have used the mutual bank’s IP and confidential information during work with Australian Military Bank (AMB).

Qudos in March 2015 signed a contract with Infosys to overhaul its digital banking services, including a core banking refresh, CRM, online banking and mobile banking services. The bank filed legal action in November, initially seeking source code and other documents that could reveal any IP infringement by Infosys.

“During the period Infosys was working on the Qudos Bank contract we became aware of striking similarities between the software developed for our project and the AMB project,” Qudos Bank chairperson Andrew Leithhead said in May this year.

“This made us very concerned that our intellectual property may have been misused and our confidence violated.”

Infosys in December consented to the production of some documents, including UX source code relating to AMB’s Infosys-developed online and mobile banking platform, records of design meetings between the company and AMB, design briefs, requirement documents and a number of other documents such as wireframe drawings provided to Infosys.

Qudos maintained that wasn’t enough to enable it to make a decision whether to proceed with its legal action and on 20 May this year Justice Burley ordered Infosys to hand over a broader collection of documents.

In his ruling the judge noted Qudos had submitted evidence compiled by the director of forensic consultancy Cyter, Rodney McKemmish, based on an analysis of the documents so far handed over by Infosys.

McKemmish, Justice Burley noted, concluded that the AMB UX code and Qudos UX code “appear to share a ‘common heritage’ having regard to the use of common folder names within similar folder structures, instances where identical code appears in both, and a number of references to Qudos-related data objects/variables in the AMB UX code.”

McKemmish was unable to conduct a “like for like” comparison, the judge’s ruling states, because “the Qudos materials provided to him are in the nature of prototype code, whereas the AMB UX code is in a different form, being that of production code.”

Justice Burley noted evidence indicated “common elements within the structure of the code” and “unexplained references to Qudos-related data objects or variables in the AMB UX code such as ‘QCUBillerRequired’ or ‘QCUUserPasswordRequired’”.

The presiding judge has now outlined a timeline for Infosys to provide Qudos with access to the source code covered by his order. By 3 September Infosys must hand over the source code of the Qudos user acceptance testing website, which contained a copy of the online and mobile banking platform the company developed for the bank, as well as the source code of the UX/UI of the mobile and online banking platform developed for AMB, including the revision history up until 19 February 2018.

By 17 September Infosys must also hand over documents recording the development of the AMB source code “including minutes of meetings and correspondence between Infosys and Australian Military Bank Limited related to its development and preparation”.

Qudos must pay 20 per cent of Infosys’ costs of the preliminary discovery application, Justice Burley ruled. If the bank doesn’t commence proceedings alleging Infosys is guilty of “breach of confidence, infringed copyright or acted in breach of contract” within 60 days of obtaining the documents then Qudos must pay Infosys’ reasonable costs of compliance with the orders for preliminary discovery and with the consent orders made in December.

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Tags software developerssoftware developmentintellectual propertyinfosysbankssource codeQudos Bank

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