591–600 of 637 posts
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Did you get funded with another party?
Yes, we raised millions through a few other VCs.
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The difference is that even though the Java API was licensed under the GPL, Google did not accept the GPL license. They implemented the API without a license. Were they willing to implement their code under the GPL there would have been nothing that Oracle could have done. I'm with others who say that an API should not be copyright-able, however it appears that in this case it doesn't matter. They may have a license!…
It wasn't Google who did it, but Apache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Harmony
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I thought most people (including myself) on HN were in favor of Google in that case, that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable. What exactly is Smartcar's product? Is it just the API design? If so, I personally think this is in the same boat as that case, and I don't really see having the same API as copying either.
I agree that copyrighting and endpoint just because the request and response have the same structure is insane. The docs would be something different thou, but again, I don't know how the docs were licensed.
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That question is the essence of the ongoing Oracle v. Google case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google... .
I thought most people (including myself) on HN were in favor of Google in that case, that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable. What exactly is Smartcar's product? Is it just the API design? If so, I personally think this is in the same boat as that case, and I don't really see having the same API as copying either.
That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…
That German company was Rocket Internet. They IPO'd Jumia last week on US markets. Love them, hate them, never underestimate them. Whether you are creating, disrupting, stealing, copying or cheating... just be the best at it. There is reward for that.
That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…
"Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market." This is really a different case though. The German VC is saying: "Food delivery is working in the US, they've validated the model + EU VC's will now get behind that, so 'do that like they are'. They are more or less competing, not exactly cloning. Copying API's is a whole other level. Literally copying docs etc. is another level. The thing is - the…
To conclude from this that Otonomo is "illegally cloning [their] product" is misleading at best. The Smartcar CEO is obviously pissed that they have a direct competitor with more funding so he tries to smear them over some trivialities.
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20 years ago was involved in the sale of a division to some investors. Involved in the same way a chicken is in the poultry business. The law firm didn't know to sanitize their documents. The upshot was they was billing a lot of hours at $500/hr for a clerk to do simple search and replace on previously existing contracts[1]. We'd read the contract find stuff that was utterly wrong and tell them. And the clerk would p…
In my experience, this is the bread and butter for a lot of law firms. Especially for simpler things like rental contracts and property conveyancing etc. It's got to be disrupted soon enough!
Lawyers usually use forms / boilerplate because they have worked in the past. Many of these forms are the sum total of thousands of hours of time and refinement over tens of years. Nobody wants to pay a lawyer to reproduce that -- at least, nobody in retail law (big corporate settlement contracts? Those see many many hours of revision and negotion, but ultimately are still based on a core form that rarely changes).
I agree that a copy+paste job seems like you are getting cheated. But like an engineer, a lawyer isn't charging you for typing, or turning a screwdriver. They are charging for knowing what contract you need, etc.
What's honestly shocking right now are the alternatives. What LegalZoom gave my friend to start an LLC would have been malpractice had it come from an actual lawyer. (But surprise! You can't sue legal zoom as easily for that thing as you can a lawyer).
Imo what really needs to go is hourly billing. But that's another conversation, and a really hard problem.
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I wouldn't hold my breath on law being disrupted, they are quite happy the way they are thank you very much.
You don't need the permission of encumbants to disrupt their industry. You just take their customers.
/s
This company is about the closest I've seen to disrupting anything so far.
My experience and observable reality show that it's hard. There's a reason even the techiest of companies still pay an army of lawyers in house and still go to the best firms for major transactions and disputes: