Lenovo Slapped With Trade Secret Lawsuit Over Source Code Theft
"Not only did Lenovo do a wholesale cut-and-paste job with Khoros's public-facing code, it also reverse-engineered Khoros's Studio Tool and its proprietary back-office website architecture, APIs, and macros," according to the complaint filed Tuesday.
May 20, 2020 at 04:41 PM
2 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The Recorder
A San Francisco software company sued Lenovo for allegedly stealing trade secrets to launch its online community platform.
Khoros, which develops a platform for brands' social media and community websites, said that Lenovo created a strikingly similar community website with stolen source code and proprietary tools after the Singapore division of the technology company terminated a 13-year contractual relationship with Khoros.
"Not only did Lenovo do a wholesale cut-and-paste job with Khoros's public-facing code, it also reverse-engineered Khoros's Studio Tool and its proprietary back-office website architecture, APIs, and macros," according to the complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Lenovo did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Lenovo was reportedly able to transition to hosting its own community website platform within three months of terminating its contract with Khoros, a feat the company alleges was achieved by appropriating its Studio Tool, which acts as a go-between with the front-facing design and back-end software, and took millions of dollars to develop.
After sending out an unanswered cease and desist letter and notice asking Lenovo to preserve data and documentation of the development of its platform, Khoros contends Lenovo began destroying evidence.
"Tellingly, Lenovo disregarded Khoros's preservation letter when it began destroying evidence of its wrongdoing by scrubbing its community's forward-facing HTML code and deleting all code segments mentioning Khoros or incorporating language unique to Khoros's Studio Tool," wrote Phil Montoya Jr. of Hawkins Parnell & Young in Los Angeles.
An investigation revealed that Lenovo copied and pasted Khoros's HTML source code for several of its site features, creating a site with "the same color schemes page outlines, URL structures, Khoros's unique community terminology, and overall look and feel," according to the complaint.
Khoros is suing Lenovo, which is headquartered in China, for breach of contract and violation of state and federal trade secret laws.
Montoya did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
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