EBay, PayPal Sue Google Over Trade Secrets

EBay and its online payment unit PayPal Inc on Thursday filed suit against Google Inc and two executives for trade secret misappropriation related to mobile payment systems.

The two executives, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, were formerly with PayPal, and led the launch on Thursday of Google's own mobile payment system.

The suit said Bedier worked for nine years at PayPal, most recently serving as vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures. He joined Google on January 24.

 Tilenius was at eBay from 2001 to October 2009 and served as a consultant to the company until March 2010. The suit says Tilenius joined Google in February, 2010 as vice president of e-commerce. Bedier is accused in the suit of having "misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers".

The suit accused Tilenius of recruiting Bedier, thereby breaking a contractual agreement with eBay. It also claims Bedier attempted to recruit former colleagues still at PayPal.

The suit claims that PayPal and Google had worked closely together for three years until this year on developing a commercial deal where PayPal would serve as a payment option for mobile app purchases on Google's Android phones.

It said Bedier was the senior PayPal executive leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period.

"At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android-PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for a job at Google -- without informing PayPal of this conflicting position," the suit claimed.

The suit was filed at Superior Court of the State of California, county of Santa Clara, Case No: CV20l863.

Source: Manila Bulleting

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