(CN) - GetFugu claims the Patton Boggs law office and some of its clients cost the mobile technology company more than $500 million by filing a frivolous lawsuit "as a pretext to tell would-be customers and investors that GetFugu and its officers and directors were being sued for racketeering."
In its complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, GetFugu claims the defendants' scheme undermined its stock price, to the advantage of its competitors.
GetFugu sued Patton Boggs, its attorney Richard Oparil, and GetFugu competitors Simon Davies and David Warnock. California law firm Cummins & White and its attorney Iman Reza are also named as defendants.
Since 2007, GetFugu has developed mobile search tools by which consumers can research products without typing a website address or search term into a browser. Its products include applications that recognize logos and products through mobile phone cameras and allow consumers to speak into the phone to retrieve content, a tool designed to work with GPS systems of mobile phones and Hotspotting, an e-commerce tool that enables the consumer to retrieve information featured in a video by touching it on the screen.
According to the complaint, "GetFugu Inc. was a public company which had a market capitalization of over $320 million before the actions of defendants improperly destroyed and/or injured the company. GetFugu introduced its initial product to consumers as a next generation mobile search tool and e-commerce application. GetFugu's technology integrated the key strengths of cellular telephones - image, voice and location recognition - and allowed consumers to retrieve content more expediently. By capturing photographs of a company logo with a camera phone, speaking the name of a company into the phone, or allowing GPS to determine their current location, the GetFugu application allowed consumers to gather desired information without needing to conduct Internet browser searches. But for defendants' tortious and wrongful acts alleged herein, the GetFugu platform would have been available for 97 percent of the mobile phones available (over 3.3 billion handsets) worldwide. Thus, but for the improper actions of defendants the value of the company and its common stock would have increased substantially in value. Instead, it lost over 99 percent of its value due to defendants' wrongful conduct." (Parentheses in complaint.)
GetFugu says it owns "a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio, including nine (9) utility patent applications that have been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office."
In November 2007, the company's president Carl Freer acquired the rights to various patents related to cellular telephone marketing and other intellectual property formerly held by Gizmondo Europe Limited, the maker of a failed handheld console, which declared bankruptcy in 2006.
GetFugu claims that "for years, Warnock and Davies have been primarily engaged in the business of seeking to sell mobile advertising goods and services. They viewed GetFugu as their principal competitors and impediment to their own ability to penetrate the market."
In November 2009, Warnock and Davies, represented by Patton Boggs - a national law firm and lobbyist which employs more than 600 lawyers - filed a federal lawsuit against GetFugu, alleging racketeering and civil conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge George H. King dismissed the claims in August 2010, but not before the allegations harmed GetFugu's reputation and stock value, according to the complaint.