LimitNone Files Suit Against Google Over E-mail Migration Tool
LimitNone LLC, a small Palatine, Illinois-based firm filed a lawsuit against Google Inc on Monday alleging that the Web giant was guilty of copying the tiny start-up’s tool for moving customers off of Microsoft’s Outlook to Google’s Gmail.
Filed in an Illinois circuit court by the commercial litigation firm of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP — by the same team who previously faced off with Google in a trademark case involving the Silicon Valley company’s highly successful online advertising system, the complaint says that Google copied the smaller firm’s tool for migrating Microsoft Outlook customers to Gmail.
Lawyers provided documentation of meetings between LimitNone and Google from March 2007. The details show that Google was hoping to build a tool called “gMove”, which would allow customers of Microsoft Corp’s Outlook to easily move their e-mail, contacts and calendars to Gmail. The suit alleges Google had trouble developing a similar tool.
LimitNone claims that Google had agreed to a confidentiality deal to share trade secrets of its e-mail migration tool with Google engineers, sales people and key Google Apps customers.
Lead plaintiff’s attorney David Rammelt said that LimitNone had been told by Google that 50 million subscribers was "just too big to come from someone else" and that a simple calculation of the lost revenue for LimitNone "very quickly gets you up to about $950 million."
Then, earlier this year, Google introduced its competing e-mail migration tool called “Google Email Uploader,” which is allegedly “almost identical” to LimitNone’s gMove, according to attorneys.
The complaint accuses the Web leader of engaging in deceptive business practices that chill competition.
Following Google’s move to compete, LimitNone shifted its focus to marketing business software for Apple Inc’s iPhone.
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