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US Trade Judge Clears Fitbit of Stealing Jawbone's Trade Secrets (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the he-said-she-said dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Fitbit did not steal rival Jawbone's trade secrets, a U.S. International Trade Commission judge ruled on Tuesday, dashing Jawbone's hopes of securing an import ban against Fitbit's wearable fitness tracking devices. The judge, Dee Lord, said that there had been no violation of the Tariff Act, which gives the commission the power to block products that infringe U.S. intellectual property, because "no party has been shown to have misappropriated any trade secret." The ruling means Jawbone comes away with nothing from a complaint it filed with the trade agency in July 2015, accusing Fitbit of infringing six patents and poaching employees who took with them confidential data about Jawbone's business, such as plans, supply chains and technical details. Jawbone first sued Fitbit last year over trade secret violations in California state court, where the case is still pending. The companies, both based in San Francisco, are also litigating over patents in federal court.

13 comments

  1. Dee Lord by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dee Lord has spoken!

    1. Re:Dee Lord by quenda · · Score: 2

      "Look at me I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with judiciary, won't go to trial 'less its legally vile, ..."

  2. Thieves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fitbit is as bad as the FLOSS community. They’re always stealing other peoples intellectual property.

    1. Re:Thieves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trimming whitespace from an SQL statement is not stealing other's IP.

    2. Re:Thieves by hey! · · Score: 1

      Not if you give the whitespace back.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. If a wearable reports back to the mothership by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    with information about you - I say fuck no.

    FUCK NO.

    What's next? Vibrators calling home? Oh, wait.... :P

  4. Bye Bye Jawbone by p51d007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's a company that came out of nowhere, in the early 2000's with what was one of the best noise cancelling BT headsets around. I got the first, second, fourth, but then they got into boom box speakers, fitness things and their headset noise cancelling headphones suffered. Their last one, the ERA, was a joke. Battery never would last the day unless you carried around the spare battery pack to charge it from time to time. It would cut out, not pick up and all sorts of issues. Even after they sent 2 different replacements, tried it on multiple phones, the thing still sucked. They got too spread out, and the quality SUFFERED.

  5. good judge by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Two of the patents were withdrawn, however, and four others were invalidated by the judge, before a May trial that was limited to the trade secrets claims.

    Now they have less ammunition to use against competitors which is good for everyone. #patentlybullshitpatents

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. Stolen Ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In graduate school, I had an invention and collaborated with my best friend and future lead scientist of Jawbone. When I went for a patent search several months later, my idea had been recently patented by his office. Screw em, thievery was in their culture.

  7. Was hoping it might go to jawbone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fitbit is getting a bit too big for itself. I am required to use one to earn points for insurance discounts. I'd rather be able to use other devices and filter information through a source like apple Health.

    1. Re:Was hoping it might go to jawbone... by PingSpike · · Score: 1

      So attach the fitbit to your dog's collar to min-max your discount points and then use the other devices.

    2. Re:Was hoping it might go to jawbone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I saw this on one of those "In the Future" programs, one of the scenes was a guy who had gone over his insurance programs alcohol allotment dumping jars of squirreled away urine down the toilet (because it had sensors reporting to his insurance company) to try to keep from loosing his health insurance. It didn't work and his insurance premiums were hiked to unaffordable levels. If you thought things were bad back when they could exclude you for "preexisting conditions" wait until they can exclude you for not exercising enough or failing to keep your calorie count below a predefined threshold.

  8. For some fun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope the judge ended the judgment with:

    Dee Lord has spoken