California man sues Uber claiming it stole ride-sharing idea | Hacker News Reader

California man sues Uber claiming it stole ride-sharing idea

reuters.com

17 pointsQUFB9 comments

If Halpern really did share his prototypes etc with Kalanick then it is quite unethical what Kalanick did but I doubt there is legal recourse. Then again I wouldn't be surprised when it comes to Travis's ethics.

This does give founders food for thought to be less open and protect their ideas until they have something solid. NDA's don't work but you can try to keep a low profile as much as possible.

NDA's do work if used correctly, but they are not a catch all.

It also points out that execution is more important than the idea. Halpern could have also built an Uber-like service, since it sounds like he had a prototype of one already, and beat them fairly in the market. But since he failed now he is whining about it.

Some funny quotes;

> At the time, unlike the persona portrayed today of a dismissive and aggressive mogul, KALANICK was an approachable fellow entrepreneur who had been humbled by failure. (#71)

> Following KALANICK’s assurances of confidentiality, HALPERN shared the Celluride concept, described its architecture, and showed KALANICK the interface sketches and designs as well as a working cell phone demo. HALPERN also gave KALANICK the Celluride Brochure and showed KALANICK the Celluride slide presentation that he would show investors and potential partners or team members. (#78)

It sounds like there's a bit more here than the early press was hinting at.. If the emails back all of it up, it seems that Halpern was developing this app for a few years, showed prototypes and business plans to all of the founders and VCs behind Uber immediately before they launched their competing service. I bet there's going to be a very large settlement coming his way...

Not a lawyer, but this seems like trolling (I could be perfectly wrong here, it just feels this way).

Was there a patent there?

Thanks to the crackdown on business method patents, the Uber concept probably isn't patentable in the US.

And rightfully so. Providing a marketplace to connect drivers to riders is not an "invention". Surge-pricing is an attempt to create well known market dynamics, but again, not an invention.

He's not suing for patent infringement (I know - surprise). He's suing for "misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract".

This is the kind of suit you file when you show your business plan to potential investors and instead of funding your company they start their own company doing the same thing.

It's a trade secrets case, not a patent case. Trade secrets are the lesser-known 4th kind of IP after patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

Here's the actual complaint: http://www.scribd.com/doc/265362619/Uber

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