Submission + - FusionGarage responds to TechCrunch lawsuit (techland.com)
As a note, IANAL, nor am I necessarily a fan of TechCrunch nor Michael Arrington. I did, however, read the lawsuit when it came out and found myself leaning toward's Arrington side of the story, as the facts and evidence he points to are far more substantial (and extant) than anything alleged by Fusion Garage thus far.
Most of the release seems more concerned with Michael Arrington's allegations made in his blog postings rather than the lawsuit itself. Fusion Garage says it has plenty of capital and is funded well enough to bring the JooJoo to market. To wit:
Pre-sales have indeed begun and, with or without them, the Company has sufficient funds to bring the joojoo to market and defend itself against the baseless claims of TechCrunch.
In the lawsuit, Arrington also made a tangential note that Fusion Garage would be infringing on patents owned by Petragon for the mainboard.
Fusion Garage is now working with another top tier ODM to develop a completely new board and mechanical layout that is the basis for the joojoo.
To state, as the lawsuit and accompanying blog post do, that Fusion Garage's joojoo is based on any Pegatron IP is false.
This does, however, call into question the company's ability to bring the product to market, as the present tense of "is now working" means they do not have a product to sell yet.
Most of the claims made in Arrington's lawsuit refer to the joint nature of the project, and he pointed to specific examples (the FusionGarage team flew to the U.S. from their Asian headquarters and worked at TechCrunch HQ, TechCrunch paid some bills for FusionGarage, an offer for TechCrunch to acquire FusionGarage was negotiated and agreed upon via e-mail, etc.) that seemed to back this up. The press release basically ignores these allegations, noting only in passing that Fusion Garage has a "doer" status, inferring that TechCrunch does not.
The second half of the press release is devoted to protecting the reputation of Fusion Garage's CEO, noting:
As for the ongoing personal attacks against Rathakrishnan, they do not deserve a point by point response. Arrington's attacks on Rathakrishnan's past business activities are unfounded. The points he raises are old news and raise the question of why he would want to do business with Rathakrishnan if his past was so controversial. Dredging up old and nebulous material only reflects his desperation for material.It seems odd to characterize these allegations as "unfounded" and "old news" — either they're unfounded, or they're old news. If they're old news, they could still be relevant since the whole affair basically resolves down to Mr. Rathakrishnan's honesty in business dealings.
