
I2 Files Suit Against Palantir Technologies - Misappropriation Trade Secrets - elblanco
http://www.i2group.com/uk/about-i2/news/media-advisory-from-i2
======
elblanco
The filed complaint: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/36371667/i2-v-palantir-080910>

For those not in the know, i2 is the maker of what's essentially the Microsoft
word of this particular industry. They're the defacto standard.

i2 is also well known for being insanely hard to work with both with customers
as well as by system integrators. Palantir has been vacuuming up a lot of
their business recently and they're really starting to get kicked out of some
traditional spaces they normally have a safe monopoly in.

One way that's being done is through interoperability with i2's products.
Folks in the community have long wondered how that was done since i2 generally
safeguards their file specifications pretty tightly and is very careful about
who they license to. The assumption was that Palantir, with the huge resources
at their disposal simply put a team on it to reverse engineer it.

This suit is largely about this if I understand correctly and the claim is
that Palantir didn't reverse engineer it, but instead used an illegally
licensed SDK, purchased through a shell company setup by a Palantir employee
in order to trick i2 into licensing their SDK to a competitor when they had no
intention of doing so.

Actually, the whole scheme sounds like a great corporate espionage demo for
both company's products.

------
metachris
Sounds like an attempt by i2 to crush a new competitor with a very vague
lawsuit. Hard to tell if it has any merit.

~~~
davidu
Actually the press release seems relatively specific in their claims. I'd
expect the actual complaint to be even more explicit.

If it's true, it will not be very hard to prove.

As an aside, this stuff happens quite often. It's inappropriate and should
never be condoned by anyone in an organization. I think people doing it often
forget that these kind of actions can be considered illegal in some cases and
jurisdictions, or at the very least a serious violation of licensing
agreements.

~~~
_delirium
It's interesting that they were caught and are being sued. My impression is
that this happens all the time in hardware, for example: companies are often
using somewhat shady means to get early copies of competitors' prototypes to
do teardowns on. Obviously they don't just go to their competitor, identify
themselves honestly, and ask to buy a copy. It's usually via front companies,
or via contacts at legitimate companies who'll get dev samples legitimately
but slip you one, or via side deals with Taiwanese or Chinese fabs, who'll set
one aside for you. AFAIK that almost never gets caught/prosecuted.

------
jasonlotito
Seems oddly appropriate that Palantir would be accused of stealing secrets.

