See when you have been in the world of technology for a while, a lot of thing just don't surprise you. But there will be some times when some occurrences will leave you speechless. This is one of such times.
Yesterday, the Pando Daily reported that a billion dollar lawsuit was filed against Travis Kalanick, Garret Camp, and early Uber investors Bill Trenchard, Bill Gurley and Scott Belsky by Kevin Halpern, alleging that they stole his idea and then cut him out to create Uber.
Kevin Halpern, and Celluride Wireless Inc., a technology company founded in 2002 by Halpern, filed suit in the San Francisco Superior Court against Uber. The suit alleges that Halpern and Celluride, between 2002 through 2008, developed the technology behind Uber's entire business including the App interface itself. He also provides attachments to the complaint which reflect ongoing discussions with Trenchard and others that detail his exchange of trade secrets in what he thought was a common enterprise to develop Celluride.
Kalanick created an exact replica of Celluride and called it Uber
The lawsuit came complete with a trailer video named "Grand Theft Uber" and everything. It leaves us to expect a new website: GrandTheftUber.com [The site is not up yet, I checked]
Uber has been known to be downright dismissive and the company practically invites this kind of lawsuit and, as a matter of fact, is involved in quite a few right now.
Whether or not Halpern is telling the truth is anyone's guess [although his credibility is hurt by the fact that he previously made headlines when he sued over founders shares for OfferPal, a suit which was partially settled and partially dismissed], but it will be fascinating to watch what the next step will be for Travis Kalanick and Uber.
Watch the video and tell us what you think? Did Travis Kalanick and Uber really steal Halpern's idea?
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