Loud Silicon Valley blogger Mike Arrington has now filed a lawsuit against the company that took his allegedly brilliant idea for an Internet-surfing tablet called the CrunchPad.
The suit, filed by Winston & Strawn's Andrew Bridges, can be viewed right here (.pdf). Earlier this week, we told you about the dispute between the TechCrunch blog founder and Fusion Garage, a Singapore company that was working with Arrington to build the device, but then cut Arrington out right before launching it under the name Joo Joo.
The suit levels accusations of trademark infringement and misappropriation of "business ideas" as well as fraud and deceit. Legal observers told Legal Pad that Arrington would have a hard time winning the case if there was no contract between the parties, as Fusion Garage's founder claimed in interviews. And indeed, the complaint doesn't mention any contract between the two to develop the CrunchPad.
But Bridges told us that there are other documents that do the job: "The complaint certainly refers to written materials that discuss agreed terms," Bridges said.
Those would be emails between Arrington and Fusion Garage CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan talking about how they would soon be officially merging. Chandrasekar also spent time working with the TechCrunch people right in the blog's office.
Bridges said he didn't know whether Fusion Garage had retained a lawyer.
— Zusha Elinson
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