back to article Health-snoop bangle vendor Fitbit hit with Jawbone sueball

Health device thingy maker Fitbit has been smacked by a sueball from competitor Jawbone, alleging it "systematically plundered employees" who stole Jawbone's intellectual property. The complaint filed yesterday (May 27) in the Superior Court of California said: "This case arises out of clandestine efforts of Fitbit to steal …

  1. Velv
    Facepalm

    Tut tut tut. Should have had a no-poach agreement in place between the companies to prevent employees being poached.

    </sarcasm>

  2. Dan Paul

    What's good for the Goose...

    should be good for the Gander.

    If there was a formal investigation and findings of collusion for an anti poaching agreement between all the big IT players, then Fitbit are well within their rights to "poach" anyone they please. So called "Poaching" employees is not illegal, perhaps somewhat unethical but not illegal.

    It is the EMPLOYEES of Fitbit's competition (Jawbone?) that risk divulging proprietary information to Fitbit. They should be careful not to divulge any info in their term of employment with Fitbit.

    1. MissingSecurity

      Re: What's good for the Goose...

      It should never be considered unethical for a company to say "Your a damn bright <Insert Career Field>. We want to pay you more to work for us."

      Competition in the work place is good and if your talented enough to have companies reach out for your skills, it should be incumbent on your employer to understand and compensate for it.

  3. Mark 85

    The funny thing about this...

    If you're an engineer or designer, you usually have "preferred methods" which are those pesky little habits that you've picked up over the years and show up in any work you do. So maybe this is how they figure "intellectual property"?

    Example, I used to work with an engineer who favored 39 ohm resistors in his amplifier circuits. Seems minor, but it was pretty consistent across every design he did. When he went to work on freelance stuff after retiring, his designs showed the same habit. There was a lawsuit invovlved but it was mooted as an amplifier circuit is an amplifier circuit.

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