PayPal and parent eBay have filed a suit against Google and two former executives alleging that they have misappropriated their trade secrets in the area of mobile payments and point-of-sale strategies.
The suit filed Thursday before the Superior Court of the State of California in the County of Santa Clara also charges two former employees, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, who now work with Google, of breaching their obligations to PayPal and eBay.
Google unveiled its Google Wallet this Thursday, which will let people with special phones pay for goods in retail shops by tapping the phones against a payment terminal.
“Bedier has in fact misappropriated PayPal’s trade secrets by sharing its mobile payment, point-of-sale and digital wallet information with Google,” the suit says.
EBay and PayPal have alleged that Bedier transferred digital documents outlining PayPal’s mobile payment and point-of-sales strategies to a non-PayPal computer a few days before leaving the company for Google on Jan. 24 this year. Those documents were critical to its mobile payments strategy, the companies said in the suit.
PayPal and eBay have alleged that 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. Bedier had an intimate knowledge of PayPal’s capabilities, strategies, plans and market intelligence regarding mobile payment and related technologies, which is information constituting in part PayPal’s trade secrets, according to the suit, a copy of which is available on eBay’s website.
Bedier was put in charge of mobile payments after he left PayPal for Google. 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, PayPal and eBay have alleged.
The plaintiffs also allege that Google hired Bedier after another former eBay executive, Stephanie Tilenius, solicited and recruited him. In doing so, Tilenius violated her contractual obligations to eBay.
Before and since his arrival at Google, Bedier has also violated his obligations to eBay by soliciting and recruiting PayPal employees to work at Google, the complaint said.
Google said this Friday that Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognised by both California law and public policy. The company said it respected trade secrets and would defend itself against the claims in the suit.
