The Court also ordered that Nova should pay costs of the Appeal in addition to those of the trial, and refused Nova leave to appeal to the House of Lords. During the trial, which ran for 12 days in November 2005 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Nova claimed copyright infringement of their “Pocket Money” SWP game by BFG in its “Trick Shot” AWP, and Mazooma in its “Jackpot Pool” SWP supplied to Gamestec and IBN for use on the Gamestec and ITBox terminals. In a tightly written judgment of the trial, Justice Kitchen concluded : “For all the reasons I have given I conclude that both actions fail.” In dismissing Nova’s claim, the Court of Appeal held that “It is very important that copyright is not allowed to intervene to stifle the creation of works that are actually very different, as the individual games are here.” The Court also said that had Nova’s claim been successful “…copyright would become an instrument of oppression rather than an incentive for creation which it is intended to be.” On behalf of Bell-Fruit, Managing Director John Austin said, “Given the strength of the judgment of the trial, we were never in doubt that the appeal would be dismissed and, after a period of almost three years since the initial claims were raised, I will be glad to put it behind us.”

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