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US Trade Judge Clears Fitbit of Stealing Jawbone's Trade Secrets (reuters.com) 13

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.
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US Trade Judge Clears Fitbit of Stealing Jawbone's Trade Secrets

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  • Bye Bye Jawbone (Score:2, Insightful)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 )
    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 dif
  • Two of the patents were withdrawn, however, and four others were invalidated by the judge, before a May trial that was limited to the trade secrets claims.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

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