Garden designer Diarmuid Gavin claims he has suffered severe embarrassment and that his reputation and livelihood as a designer of contemporary gardens have been adversely affected.
He claims this has arisen from his design being allegedly used by another designer to take first prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Mr Gavin has brought a High Court action alleging that the Cancer Research UK garden by British designer Andrew Sturgeon, which won the gold medal at this year's Chelsea Flower Show, infringed his copyright.
He is seeking damages, alleging misrepresentation and passing off, and wants an order for the immediate delivery up or destruction under oath of all copies of the garden in question.
Mr Sturgeon has denied the claims and challenged the jurisdiction of the Irish courts to hear the case. However, Mr Justice Brian McGovern ruled yesterday that Mr Gavin is entitled to sue in this jurisdiction and rejected an application by Mr Sturgeon's counsel to have the proceedings struck out.
In an affidavit opened to the court, Mr Gavin said he had suffered severe damage in particular among his peers in the Irish garden design profession and among the Irish public because Mr Sturgeon infringed his copyright and/or intellectual property rights in the work and concept known as Torpedo.
Mr Gavin has won several awards for his designs and has a reputation as a leading designer of contemporary gardens worldwide.
In November 2002, he said in his affidavit, he designed a unique garden called Torpedo, the central feature of which is a capsule-shaped building in the form of a garden pavilion. Mr Gavin said it was an original artistic work widely associated with him. He had acquired valuable goodwill in the unique design created by him at his Glasnevin home.
He said Mr Sturgeon had in his May 2006 Cancer Research UK garden reproduced a substantial part of Mr Gavin's work in a material form. This, he said, infringed the copyright and intellectual property rights of his original design by allegedly adapting his Torpedo garden design and artistic work for the Chelsea Flower Show entry.
In his affidavit, Mr Gavin said this had caused harm to the valuable goodwill and reputation which he had achieved "in my unique artistic creation".
He said the benefit which had accrued to Mr Sturgeon as a result of the infringement had deprived him of any substantial benefit in the moral rights associated with his design.