Man sues Uber for a BEEELLION dollars over alleged theft of concept

misappropriated trade secrets and being in breach of contract

I'm sure he has a signed copy of that contract, right? As for the trade secrets, in this particular case as soon as you make the app public what do you really have for secrets?

You know what, I had the same idea around the same time. I'm not suing though, because Uber did it better than me and it was inevitable a service like Uber would come in to existence.

Just another patent troll

This Halpern character is just one of the many trolls that turns up when a good idea goes global. As the holder of a few patents myself, I've seen this sort of nonsense many times - never for this kind of insane amount, but often for a million or two. Since the most I've ever made from a patent is a few tens of thousands, my legal eagle tells me just to laugh at them and file them as spam!

These are just the modern equivalent of the "begging letters" that every football pool and lottery winner receives.

It's really a brilliant strategy.

Pitch random ideas all over the place, get someone else to develop it and run the financial risks, then if/when the business takes off, claim to have been the original inventor and sue their balls off.

Sanity check

1. Halpern created the Uber business model and founded Celluride in 2003, some four years before the iPhone was released.

2. In 2006, after three years doing nothing (?) with the idea, he let it slip to Trevor Kalanick.

3. In 2009 Kalanick and Garrett Camp started Uber, Halpern having spent another three years doing nothing significant with "his" idea.

Halpern's suit probably is due for a quick and unfortunate end unless he has signed documents from Kalnick acknowledging his precedence. If he is lucky, his lawyer hired on for a contingent fee and the risk of court censure for wasting a judge's time.

Theft of IP

"Halpern's claim indicates that, at the time, he was developing his own mobile-based, private-car-hailing service, and that one of the few parties that Halpern trusted with the details of his company was Trevor Kalanick, who later went on to found Uber."

Yep - looks like he was ripped off.

I came up with the idea of rating tradesmen based on user experience (like TripAdvisor but for people instead of places). The fact that someone else got it off the ground and built the product that people wanted to use means they win and I lose. I'm not going to cry a river - that's how business works.

Just wait...

... until Rapists starting suing Uber on similar grounds.

By Rights this...

...should be in the public domain. There is an informal transport business in Puerto Rico called the "Publico." Anyone with a car can carry anyone needing a ride for an agreed upon fee.

Idiot

If you chat about your brilliant idea with the chap next door you have given it away. You are an idiot and you have no one to blame but yourself. Trade Secrets are called that for a good reason, they are supposed to be secret, i,e, don't tell the man next door.