Opera claims former employee gave stolen trade secrets to Mozilla

Company files $3.4m suit against designer over features in iPad browser.

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[Janeazy]

that's really interesting. I guess interface design paradigms are considered proprietary before they're released to the public, but as soon as they're released, they're fair game to be copied by others (like Speed Dial for example, which Chrome, Firefox, and others have added).

At least I'm glad to hear Opera wasn't gung ho about suing anyone that used that interface design paradigm

 

[xoa]

But if the suit is successful, it could potentially pose problems for Mozilla as well, given Hansen's level of involvement with both "Junior" and the Firefox browser.

Could you please explain how? Trade secrets aren't patents, and involve a different set of tradeoffs. They don't have any set expiration and can thus potentially last forever, have no disclosure or registration requirements, are instant etc. But they also don't offer any protection once disclosed, it's up to each company themselves to protect them. If they enter public knowledge then that's that, be it leaks or reverse engineering or whatever.

If he violated his NDA then that's a matter of contract law between him and Opera, and they can certainly go after him. Unless they can prove Mozilla actively engaged in industrial espionage towards Opera however I don't see how they have any case against Mozilla, and even then it'd only be monetary damages. Anyone can implement any of those features and Opera has no protection whatsoever.

 

[xoa]

Janeazy[/url]":2aehqu9f]I guess interface design paradigms are considered proprietary before they're released to the public, but as soon as they're released, they're fair game to be copied by others (like Speed Dial for example, which Chrome, Firefox, and others have added).

No, they can still potentially be patented, which is yet another reason software patents are terrible, or possibly get a sort of trademark-esque protection (a design patent) that covers the exact look and design, though that doesn't prevent anyone else from using the same idea/concept in a slightly different way. Trade secrets should be the same though whether it's an internal software feature or a fancy kind of alcohol.

 

[fenris_uy]

xoa[/url]":2ctrpjm8]

But if the suit is successful, it could potentially pose problems for Mozilla as well, given Hansen's level of involvement with both "Junior" and the Firefox browser.

Could you please explain how? Trade secrets aren't patents, and involve a different set of tradeoffs. They don't have any set expiration and can thus potentially last forever, have no disclosure or registration requirements, are instant etc. But they also don't offer any protection once disclosed, it's up to each company themselves to protect them. If they enter public knowledge then that's that, be it leaks or reverse engineering or whatever.

If he violated his NDA then that's a matter of contract law between him and Opera, and they can certainly go after him. Unless they can prove Mozilla actively engaged in industrial espionage towards Opera however I don't see how they have any case against Mozilla, and even then it'd only be monetary damages. Anyone can implement any of those features and Opera has no protection whatsoever.

If it is proven that he copied actual code, that's a copyright violation and Mozilla would have to clean the code of all that part's that Hansen worked in.

 

[taswyn]

xoa[/url]":2yukgjzg]

But if the suit is successful, it could potentially pose problems for Mozilla as well, given Hansen's level of involvement with both "Junior" and the Firefox browser.

Could you please explain how? Trade secrets aren't patents, and involve a different set of tradeoffs. They don't have any set expiration and can thus potentially last forever, have no disclosure or registration requirements, are instant etc. But they also don't offer any protection once disclosed, it's up to each company themselves to protect them. If they enter public knowledge then that's that, be it leaks or reverse engineering or whatever.

If he violated his NDA then that's a matter of contract law between him and Opera, and they can certainly go after him. Unless they can prove Mozilla actively engaged in industrial espionage towards Opera however I don't see how they have any case against Mozilla, and even then it'd only be monetary damages. Anyone can implement any of those features and Opera has no protection whatsoever.

If Mozilla was aware that he was incorporating trade secrets from Opera, it would potentially be considered misappropriation, I believe, on Mozilla's part. "We didn't know he was under contract" in reference to any NDAs/etc would not be an excuse. Simply knowing it was Opera tech which had not been released would probably be enough. If Opera had released it and Mozilla had reverse engineered/copied it it would have been fine (so far as the trade secret aspect), although Hansen's involvement would have still been suspect.

How patents, trade secrets, etc interact with someone's ability to bring professionally acquired knowledge and developed skills to bear can be murky and at times bizarre.

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

xoa[/url]":2ynp8zem]

But if the suit is successful, it could potentially pose problems for Mozilla as well, given Hansen's level of involvement with both "Junior" and the Firefox browser.

Could you please explain how? Trade secrets aren't patents, and involve a different set of tradeoffs. They don't have any set expiration and can thus potentially last forever, have no disclosure or registration requirements, are instant etc. But they also don't offer any protection once disclosed, it's up to each company themselves to protect them. If they enter public knowledge then that's that, be it leaks or reverse engineering or whatever.

If he violated his NDA then that's a matter of contract law between him and Opera, and they can certainly go after him. Unless they can prove Mozilla actively engaged in industrial espionage towards Opera however I don't see how they have any case against Mozilla, and even then it'd only be monetary damages. Anyone can implement any of those features and Opera has no protection whatsoever.

I would think that Hansen would have had to sign a NDA or non-compete of some kind for any kind of trade secrets protection. Who knows? IANAL but it wouldn't surprise me if they could make some stupid employee handbook rule stick if the lawyers were crafty enough.

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

 

[baloroth]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":19sl6xlj]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

The features are in Opera now, or at least quite a few/most of them (hence the "had not been", past tense). The accusation is that he told Mozilla about them before they got released in Opera. Like Speed Dial: released in Opera in 2007, just after he left. He could have told Mozilla about it before Opera released it.

You're right the details are a bit light.

 

[wwif]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":26sdw893]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

So if a company develops something but doesn't make it public for a couple of years for whatever reason, industrial espionage suddenly becomes just fine? Not to mention breach of NDA, breach of contract, etc.

If Opera was petty they would have patented more stuff and sued all the other browsers over all the stuff they copied.

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

wwif[/url]":3ke7wi9f]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":3ke7wi9f]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

So if a company develops something but doesn't make it public for a couple of years for whatever reason, industrial espionage suddenly becomes just fine? Not to mention breach of NDA, breach of contract, etc.

If Opera was petty they would have patented more stuff and sued all the other browsers over all the stuff they copied.

So far we have no indication that there was a breach of contract or industrial espionage.

For example, is there any evidence that Mozilla was working on adding Opera Mojo to Firefox before Opera released its mojo containing version? This should be easy evidence to spot. Mozilla development largely is done out in the open on mailing lists, bugzilla, and etc. There would have been early patches circulating.

Again, not enough details.

 

[flatrock19]

If Opera paid for the development they would likely own the Copyright for any code developed. If Werner reused that code in his work for Mozilla, then there would likely be issues.

 

[TWeaKoR]

I could have sworn Opera was the first to implement the speed dial.

 

[Bad Monkey!]

flatrock19[/url]":2843e0ao]If Opera paid for the development they would likely own the Copyright for any code developed. If Werner reused that code in his work for Mozilla, then there would likely be issues.

Well, once again, Mozilla does their development entirely in the open, and all of their source code is open. If there's copyrighted code in there, it'd be trivial for Opera to point it out, and given Mozilla's commitment to having unencumbered code, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to get rid of it.

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

baloroth[/url]":1ift2yoo]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":1ift2yoo]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

The features are in Opera now, or at least quite a few/most of them (hence the "had not been", past tense). The accusation is that he told Mozilla about them before they got released in Opera. Like Speed Dial: released in Opera in 2007, just after he left. He could have told Mozilla about it before Opera released it.

You're right the details are a bit light.

If you go by the release dates, April 11, 2007 (Opera speed dial) to June 5, 2012 (Mozilla speed dial) seems like plenty of time for Mozilla to develop speed dial without any head start. While the concept may be novel, it's not particularly hard to implement. There were, after all, tons of speed dial addons before Mozilla released their version in Firefox proper. I doubt all those addon developers all had a helping hand from an Opera insider... seems like way too much espionage to be plausible.

I'd argue that most things related to UI are in the same boat. Easy to implement, once you know you want to do it. UIs are hard to develop because the initial design concepts are hard. Once the proof of concept is out... the work is done. It's a bit harder to restructure a JavaScript engine because those things have truly complex implementation. UI's? Not so much. Changing a UI is like switching colors of lipstick while changing JS engines is like replacing a heart valve.

I just don't see speed dial as a trade secret requiring industrial espionage to get a head start on developing.

 

[xoa]

fenris_uy[/url]":rzvj801l]If it is proven that he copied actual code, that's a copyright violation and Mozilla would have to clean the code of all that part's that Hansen worked in.

That doesn't seem to be the allegation though, looks like it's all about trade secrets, and at any rate copyright would be trivial for them to prove. As long as Mozilla wrote new code themselves though they should be in the clear as far as copyright goes.

taswyn[/url]":rzvj801l]If Mozilla was aware that he was incorporating trade secrets from Opera, it would potentially be considered misappropriation, I believe, on Mozilla's part.

Yeah, that's what I was going with as far as the industrial espionage reference. If he just came on board as an expert though hard to say.

How patents, trade secrets, etc interact with someone's ability to bring professionally acquired knowledge and developed skills to bear can be murky and at times bizarre.

Well, patents aren't murky at all, that's the point. Nothing secret about them alone, and it doesn't matter if it's coming from a previous employee or a company develops it entirely independently on their own. But trade secrets yeah, murky and bizarre would both be good adjectives for some of the situations that arise. Even NDAs/non-competes can be murky after employment is over, since some jurisdictions tend to view them with significant skepticism even when they're pretty limited.

 

[Tamsen]

At least regarding speed dial, Mozilla's is still nowhere near as good as Opera's. Not that much needs doing to make it so, but it still is worse.

Now if Opera could get on with their next release, that would be grand. I'm annoyed their abandoning Presto, but Opera 12.15 isn't stable (though still great) and either needs updating (not going to happen) or for their Blink browser to be released.

 

[Garst]

I want to point out that this sort of "crime" will happen a lot more if the patent system changes to a "First-to-File," paradigm.

 

[stepnsteph]

Hasn't been implemented? In other words they're over there sitting on it, if it even exists in some meaningful way, and Opera is basically patent trolling now. Congrats, Opera, you've somehow managed to make yourselves even more irrelevant. I didn't think that was possible, yet here we are.

 

[wwif]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":2j7qfyyr]

wwif[/url]":2j7qfyyr]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":2j7qfyyr]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

So if a company develops something but doesn't make it public for a couple of years for whatever reason, industrial espionage suddenly becomes just fine? Not to mention breach of NDA, breach of contract, etc.

If Opera was petty they would have patented more stuff and sued all the other browsers over all the stuff they copied.

So far we have no indication that there was a breach of contract or industrial espionage.

There's as much indication that this is the case as anything else. Why would Opera sue if they didn't think he did something really bad?

For example, is there any evidence that Mozilla was working on adding Opera Mojo to Firefox before Opera released its mojo containing version? This should be easy evidence to spot. Mozilla development largely is done out in the open on mailing lists, bugzilla, and etc. There would have been early patches circulating.

Presumably, Opera has evidence that the things Mozilla presented in some video was developed in secret at Opera before the contractor sold it to Mozilla.

 

[wwif]

stepnsteph[/url]":3n3wq81b]Hasn't been implemented? In other words they're over there sitting on it, if it even exists in some meaningful way, and Opera is basically patent trolling now. Congrats, Opera, you've somehow managed to make yourselves even more irrelevant. I didn't think that was possible, yet here we are.

As I said earlier: So if a company develops something but doesn't make it public for a couple of years for whatever reason, industrial espionage suddenly becomes just fine? Not to mention breach of NDA, breach of contract, etc.

Patent trolling? What are you talking about? There's not a single mention of any patents here. If Opera wanted to do patent trolling they would have done so (they have several patents). Other browsers have been ripping off Opera for years. The difference is, they copied Opera's features once Opera had launched them. They didn't pay a consultant to steal Opera's trade secrets before they actually made them into a product.

 

[wwif]

Most of the development work Hansen was involved with never came to fruition

Really? How does he know if his contract was terminated? How can he possibly know what Opera's plans were, or what they did with the technology he was paid to create at Opera?

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

wwif[/url]":3ena0gxd]Why would Opera sue if they didn't think he did something really bad?

Opera's accusations make the guy guilty? "Look Yer honor, we wouldn't sue if we weren't right. Just have him cut us a check and we'll stop wasting your time." Are they too big to be wrong now?

All we have so far is Opera's word for it and shoulder shrugs.

 

[wwif]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":1u6ue654]

wwif[/url]":1u6ue654]Why would Opera sue if they didn't think he did something really bad?

Opera's accusations make the guy guilty? "Look Yer honor, we wouldn't sue if we weren't right. Just have him cut us a check and we'll stop wasting your time." Are they too big to be wrong now?

The sum they are suing him for is pocket change to Opera. If it was all about the money they would have gone after a bigger target with deeper pockets, and demanded more money.

All we have so far is Opera's word for it and shoulder shrugs.

Actually, this story is based on the contractor's word for it. Opera simply confirmed that they are suing over breach of contract, selling trade secrets to a competitor, etc.

Also, Opera is not exactly known for being litigious. They've been in business for 20 years, and this is the first time they've sued someone like this.

 

[jimjimjimjimjim]

wwif[/url]":1bwich4e]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":1bwich4e]

wwif[/url]":1bwich4e]Why would Opera sue if they didn't think he did something really bad?

Opera's accusations make the guy guilty? "Look Yer honor, we wouldn't sue if we weren't right. Just have him cut us a check and we'll stop wasting your time." Are they too big to be wrong now?

The sum they are suing him for is pocket change to Opera. If it was all about the money they would have gone after a bigger target with deeper pockets, and demanded more money.

If you think I was clambering about the money, there's not much hope for you. Goodbye.

 

[Postulator]

This guy needs to shut up and find a lawyer. Anything he says about what he may or may not have done may prejudice his day in court.

 

[crislevin]

wwif[/url]

Also, Opera is not exactly known for being litigious. They've been in business for 20 years, and this is the first time they've sued someone like this.

Opera is doing a lot of things lately for the first time.

 

[dnebdal]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":2ex6a672]

wwif[/url]":2ex6a672]

jimjimjimjimjim[/url]":2ex6a672]Is there any thing specific about the features in question or is it still a secret? Anything more than "he stole our mojo!"?

Also, 1999 to 2006 and then 2009 to 2010... and the feature(s) is still not in Opera? When did he develop them? Does Opera intend on using them or they just throwing a fit because they can?

I have nothing against Opera, but I'm getting a whiff of petty. Too few details to be sure though.

So if a company develops something but doesn't make it public for a couple of years for whatever reason, industrial espionage suddenly becomes just fine? Not to mention breach of NDA, breach of contract, etc.

If Opera was petty they would have patented more stuff and sued all the other browsers over all the stuff they copied.

So far we have no indication that there was a breach of contract or industrial espionage.

For example, is there any evidence that Mozilla was working on adding Opera Mojo to Firefox before Opera released its mojo containing version? This should be easy evidence to spot. Mozilla development largely is done out in the open on mailing lists, bugzilla, and etc. There would have been early patches circulating.

Again, not enough details.

He was also quoting Opera user research data, which is covered by their NDA. If he manages to incriminate himself in that regard in a just few minutes of video, it's plausible that he might also have told Mozilla about some of it earlier.

 

[redtabsco]

Opera is still around? Since when?

 

[psd]

"software invention"

now there's a tech related oxymoron

 

[BobsYourUncleBob]

I don't work in an IP related capacity & I'm hoping someone can shed some light on a question. To preface 1) I'm taking everyone at his/her word. 2) Quite a few comments discuss NDAs, contractual terms of Hansen's employment with Opera, trade secret super sauce, etc.3) What we "know" is that there's been some degree of "they said, he said" back & forth between Opera & Hansen.

Now, I get it that if Hansen is under contract with Opera, then Opera owns the code that Hansen authored on their behalf. But (again, I'm taking everyone at their word) assume that prior to working with Opera Hansen authored a code base (or however it's referred to) in support of specific conceptual features that he wanted to implement in GB.

Then, Hansen & Opera talk, Opera likes Hansen's concepts, Opera hires Hansen, Hansen ports his independently developed code to Opera & refines it specifically to implement his concepts on Opera's platform. Surely Opera would own the refinement that Hansen authored, but wouldn't Hansen retain ownership of his original coded concepts, & be free to do with them as he chooses? (Like porting it to Mozilla?)

 

[sporkwitch]

BobsYourUncleBob[/url]":2kthhwci]I don't work in an IP related capacity & I'm hoping someone can shed some light on a question. To preface 1) I'm taking everyone at his/her word. 2) Quite a few comments discuss NDAs, contractual terms of Hansen's employment with Opera, trade secret super sauce, etc.3) What we "know" is that there's been some degree of "they said, he said" back & forth between Opera & Hansen.

Now, I get it that if Hansen is under contract with Opera, then Opera owns the code that Hansen authored on their behalf. But (again, I'm taking everyone at their word) assume that prior to working with Opera Hansen authored a code base (or however it's referred to) in support of specific conceptual features that he wanted to implement in GB.

Then, Hansen & Opera talk, Opera likes Hansen's concepts, Opera hires Hansen, Hansen ports his independently developed code to Opera & refines it specifically to implement his concepts on Opera's platform. Surely Opera would own the refinement that Hansen authored, but wouldn't Hansen retain ownership of his original coded concepts, & be free to do with them as he chooses? (Like porting it to Mozilla?)

Depends. A lot of times programmers' (and anyone else that works in some type of creative capacity) have a line in their contracts that says anything they make while employed with them is owned by the company; this can often even extend to projects you create on YOUR OWN TIME. They probably wouldn't fight, or if they did, not successfully fight, contributions to open source software; it's more about preventing you from working on a side project to start making money on your own and break away. As with any other creative industry, the production houses like keeping the actual creators in a form as close to indentured servitude and dependency as possible. One example is how my father has dozens of patents with his name on them, but they're all owned by Smith & Wesson, because he was employed there at the time. Even the work he did at home coming up with new ideas, the company owns. Gets even fuzzier when you talk about a salaried employee (as almost anyone doing these jobs is), since you don't have a set schedule, as such, but rather a fixed income and you work when they tell you to; in such a situation, when is your "free time" when you are arguably always on the clock, since it's not an hourly, but a monthly wage?

Point is, even if he did it on his own time, even though he came up with the idea himself, he was working for Opera at the time, and his contract may (and likely did) have terms that granted ownership to Opera.

 

[wwif]

crislevin[/url]":2o78d86o]

wwif[/url]":2o78d86o]

Also, Opera is not exactly known for being litigious. They've been in business for 20 years, and this is the first time they've sued someone like this.

Opera is doing a lot of things lately for the first time.

Such as? And what is your point?

redtabsco[/url]":2o78d86o]Opera is still around? Since when?

Since 1994, and with higher revenues, profits and user numbers than ever? Why are you asking?

 

[wwif]

BobsYourUncleBob[/url]":3uvy39nz]Then, Hansen & Opera talk, Opera likes Hansen's concepts, Opera hires Hansen, Hansen ports his independently developed code to Opera & refines it specifically to implement his concepts on Opera's platform. Surely Opera would own the refinement that Hansen authored, but wouldn't Hansen retain ownership of his original coded concepts, & be free to do with them as he chooses? (Like porting it to Mozilla?)

Is this really about code? I thought it was about a feature, idea or concept Opera paid him to come up with.