PayPal sues Google over mobile plans, trade secrets
Well that didn't take long. Just hours after Google made its mobile payment plans public eBay's PayPal unit sued the search giant and two key executives.
The reason---the two Google executives that were the headliners at the company's press conference---were PayPal employees up until recently. PayPal alleges that the executives---Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilcnius---stole trade secrets that led to Google Wallet.
Regarding Bedier, PayPal said in its complaint:
Defendant Osama Bedier was the senior PayPal executive responsible for Mobile, Platform, and New Ventures. In this role, he was PayPal’s senior leader charged with bringing its mobile payment and point of sale technologies and services to retailers. Through this work, he had an intimate knowledge of PayPal’s capabilities, strategies, plans, and market intelligence regarding mobile payment and related technologies — information constituting in part PayPal’s trade secrets. Bedier left PayPal for Google on or about January 24, 2011, and was put in charge of Mobile Payments. He is now leading Google’s efforts to bring point of sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf. In the course of his work at Google, Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers.
In addition, from 2008 to 2011, Google and PayPal were negotiating a commercial deal where PayPal would serve as a payment option for mobile app purchases on Google’s Android Market. During that time, PayPal provided Google with an extensive education in mobile payments. Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period.
As for Tilcnius, PayPal alleges that the executive repeatedly tried to recruit Bedier.
It's unclear where the case will go. EBay filed its lawsuit in the Superior Court of California.
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