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LYNN M. TERREBONNE (SBN# 248964)
/ynn@rajpatentocom
ASHWIN K. ANAND (SBN# 264694)
ashwin@rajpatent.com
RAJ ABHYANKER, P.C.
1580 W. EI Camino Real, Suite 13
Mountain View, CA 94040
Telephone: (650) 965-8731
Facsimile: (650) 989-2131
Attorneys for Plaintiff,
Raj V. Abhyanker
FILED
BY 1m
. ,. DE
(LX(r1G(2CUOoTF 0-Ii
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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA
UNLIMITED JURISDICTION
RAJ VASANT ABHYANKER,
Plaintiff,
v.
FACEBOOK, INC.; BRET TAYLOR; and
DOES 1-100,
Defendants.
CASE NO: 1 1 2 C V2 1 7 1 5 6
COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND
EQUITABLE RELIEF FOR:
(I) MISAPPROPRIATION OF TRADE
SECRETS (CAL.CIV.CODE 3426 ET
SEQ.); AND,
(2) UNJUST ENRICHMENT.
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELlEF
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Plaintiff Raj Vasant Abhyanker, by his attorneys, alleges as follows:
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
1. Jurisdiction is proper in this Court because the Superior Court is a court of general
jurisdiction and because Plaintiff seeks both damages and equitable relief.
2. Venue is proper in this Court because Defendants maintain their principal business
operations in the County of Santa Clara, and regularly conduct business in this county. All
Defendants, upon information and belief: either reside in the County of Santa Clara andlor
conducted the acts complained of herein in the County of Santa Clara. PlaintitT at all times
complained of herein was and is a resident of the County of Santa Clara.
THE PARTIES
PLAINTIFF
3. Plaintiff Raj V. Abhyanker ("Plaintiff') is a resident of Cupertino, California.
Plaintiff was employed by Fatdoor, Inc. from December 26,2006 through September 7, 2007.
DEFENDANTS
4. Upon information and belief, Defendant Facebook, Inc. is a Delaware limited
corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Facebook"). Facebook is located in San Mateo County at
1601 Willow Road and conducts business in the County of Santa Clara.
5. Upon information and belief, Defendant Bret Taylor ("Taylor") is a resident of Los
Gatos, California. Taylor, as of the filing of this Complaint, is the Chief Technology Officer of
Facebook.
6. The true names and capacities of Defendants named DOES 1-100, inclusive,
whether individual, corporate, associate, or otherwise, are presently unknown to Plaintiff.
Plaintiff therefore sues these Defendants by these fictitious names. Plaintiff will amend his
Complaint to substitute true names and capacities when they have been ascertained. Plaintiff is
informed and believes, on the basis of that information and belief alleges that each of the
fictitiously-named Defendants is responsible in some manner for the occurrences herein alleged.
III
III
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PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELIEF
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NATURE OF THE ACTION
7. At the time of certain of Defendants' wrongful acts and through the present,
Plaintiff was/is the owner of certain trade secrets and intellectual property (collectively referred
developed by Plaintiff prior to his employment by Fatdoor, Inc. (collectively referred to as
"Plaintiff's Trade Secrets") including but not limited to the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of
Influence concept including, but not limited to, "smart list" algorithms which automatically
group connected users based on interest area, location, profession, and interests; "manual list"
algorithms which allow users to manually add themselves to various spheres of influence
("circles of influence"), to self elect themselves into different communication circles, and to
select various friends/contacts that they wished to include into these circles; and algorithms that
allow users in each sphere of influence to communicate with other members in the same sphere
of influence without these communications being made public to non-members of the smart list
and/or manual list. Other trade secrets which were owned by Plaintiff at the time of certain of
Defendants wrongful acts and through the present include algorithms, source code, knowhow,
and techniques related to social network demand aggregation, notification, and broadcast ("news
feed feature"), surfacing user emotion ("like/emotions feature"), user suggested ordering to
influence feed ranking and geo-spatial social relationship analysis ("optimization feature"),
business page claiming ("claim feature"), geo-spatial feed exposure ("community contribution
feature").
8. The Plaintiff's Trade Secrets including, but not limited to, Bubbles Around
You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the
"optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature" were
based on trade secrets that were developed by Plaintiff prior to his employment by Fatdoor, Inc.
on December 26, 2006 and improvements thereon, for which Plaintiff retained ownership rights
in at the time of Defendants' wrongful acts. Upon information and belief, for the purpose of this
action, Plaintiff continues to retain rights in all Plaintiff's Trade Secrets conceived prior to his
employment by Fatdoor, Inc., consistent with the proprietary inventions agreement of January
31,2007 between Fatdoor, Inc. and Plaintiff.
- 3
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9. Defendants misappropriated Plaintiffs Trade Secrets, which were developed by
Plaintiff prior to his employment at Fatdoor, Inc., and improvements thereon, and which include,
but are not limited to, dozens of key product details, algorithms, security algorithms, database
structures, user interface designs, software code, product concepts, prototypes, methods, works of
authorship, trademarks, white papers, and instrumentalities regarding the Bubbles Around
You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the
"optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature" through
improper means including, but not limited to, theft and the disclosure and/or use of Plaintiffs
Trade Secrets in violation of, at least, the June 2007 oral confidentiality agreement, the July 2007
oral confidentiality agreement acknowledged in writing, and the August 2007 written
confidentiality agreement between Plaintiff and Taylor.
10. Shortly after Plaintiffs confidential disclosure of Plaintiffs Trade Secrets to
Taylor, Taylor started the venture FriendFeed, Inc. ("FriendFeed"). Numerous articles surmised
that Facebook was secretly porting features from FriendFeed into Facebook. FriendFeed's
website was not in public launch mode until April 29, 2009, when it went from private beta to
public launch. However, in an August 2008 post on the FriendFeed blog, Taylor described
FriendFeeds "manual list" feature added to FriendFeed's website as:
Friend lists enable you to organize your friends into groups. With
friend lists, you can get updates from your family separately
from your coworkers, or you can add an acquaintance to a list
and remove them from your home feed.
(Exhibit D.) Plaintiff had no reason to know in August of 2008 that the FriedFeed "manual list"
feature was based on Plaintiffs Trade Secrets due to the lack of a "smart list" feature on the
FriendFeed website.
11. Plaintiff could not have reasonably known of the connection between Taylor and
Facebook until August 10, 2009 when Facebook purchased FriendFeed. (See Exhibit E.) At that
- 4
PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELIEF
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time, numerous articles speculated that the main reason that FriendFeed was purchased by
Facebook was to hire Taylor and Norris, who carried with them trade secrets owned by others.
(See for example, Exhibits F and G.)
12. Plaintiff first had reason to know that Facebook may have misappropriated
Plaintiffs Trade Secrets in September 2011, when Facebook made the announcement of its new
"smart lists" feature. Plaintiff, after learning of Facebook's "smart list" feature, began to
investigate how Facebook had acquired the technology underlying the feature and found an article
in Business Insider on June 28, 2011 that made it clear that Mark Zuckerberg ("Zuckerberg"), the
Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, had been attempting to implement the Bubbles Around
You/Spheres of Influence trade secrets for over a year, or ever since he promoted Taylor to the
post of Chief Technical Officer. The Business Insider article comments:
Mark Zuckerberg took a personal interest in meeting this threat
from Google [regarding users sharing information with a select
group of friends], and put a team on it last summer. The result:
Facebook Groups, which launched in October.
(See: Exhibit I.)
13. Zuckerberg promoted Taylor to the Chief Technical Officer of Facebook, Inc. in
June 2010. Particularly, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter that was posted in TechCrunch in June
2010 to all Facebook employees:
I have some good news to share with all of you. I've created a
new role and have asked Bret Taylor to become our CTO.... Bret
has helped shape my thinking on products, engineering, and
strategy in many ways .... Mark
(See: Exhibit H.)
14. Upon information and belief, Taylor helped Zuckerberg and Facebook shape
"thinking on products, engineering, and strategy in many ways" (see Exhibit H) by
misappropriating trade secrets, including those of Plaintiffs Trade Secrets that form the Bubbles
Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature,"
the "optimization feature," the "claim feature," an!=! the "community contribution feature".
- 5
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15. Around August 2005, as a software engineer and lawyer who became a candidate
for political office, Plaintiff needed a way to organize voter infonnation, and to fonn stronger
bonds with potential voters. Plaintiff detennined that the best way to do this is to facilitate
connections between connected users with similar interests, cities, neighborhoods, professions,
work affiliations, and school affiliations in a social network. Plaintiff detennined that the desktop
based tools available at the time, such as MapPoint did not enable users in the community to
forge stronger bonds through social communications. Plaintiff, therefore, architected and later
built multiple applications to facilitate group communications, one of which, allowed connected
users with shared interests to be grouped into and communicate within bubbles/spheres of
influence.
16. Through the use of Plaintiffs Trade Secrets, groups ofusers/"neighbors" would be
automatically grouped based on interest area, location, profession, and interests through the use of
"smart list" algorithms that the Plaintiff developed prior to his employment at Fatdoor, Inc. In
addition, users could use a "manual list" feature to manually add themselves to various "circles of
influence" to self elect themselves into different communication circles and select various
friends/contacts that they wished to include into these circles. The "manual list" feature was
based on the "manual list" algorithms Plaintiff developed prior to his employment at Fatdoor, Inc.
Additionally, through the use of other algorithms developed by Plaintiff prior to his employment
at Fatdoor, Inc., users in each sphere/circle of influence would be able to communicate with other
members in the same sphere of influence, but messages by users would not be made public to
non-members of the smart list and/or manual list. (See Exhibit A, mock up images illustrating the
Bubble Around You/Spheres ofInfluence concept.) This trade secret of "smart list" and "manual
list" was called the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence in early specifications created
between 2005 and 2006.
17. Plaintiff worked diligently between August 2005 and June 2006 to get the
prototype Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence website built. Plaintiff instructed the
developers that were assisting him to build the prototype website to keep their work confidential
in order to ensure that Plaintiff s Trade Secrets would not become public knowledge.
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18. Plaintiff, as part of his efforts to obtain funding for Fatdoor, Inc., met with Taylor
on or about June 2007. Plaintiff asked Taylor to agree to hold the infonnation regarding
Plaintiff's Trade Secrets in strict confidence during the June 2007 meeting in order to ensure that
Plaintiffs Trade Secrets would remain confidential. Taylor then verbally entered into an oral
contract with the Plaintiff confinning that he would hold the infonnation regarding Plaintiffs
Trade Secrets in strict confidence. Plaintiff then disclosed the technical details of Bubbles
Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature,"
the "optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature" to
Taylor based on the oral confidentiality agreement, which was later acknowledge in writing.
Plaintiff proceeded to spend most of that afternoon with Taylor discussing the confidential
technical details of the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, including, but not
limited to, "smart list" algorithms which automatically group connected users based on interest
area, location, profession, and interests; "manual list" algorithms which allow users to manually
add themselves to various spheres of influence ("circles of influence"), to self elect themselves
into different communication circles, and to select various friends/contacts that they wished to
include into these circles; and algorithms that allow users in each sphere of influence to
communicate with other members in the same sphere of influence without these communications
being made public to non-members of the smart list and/or manual list. They also discussed the
confidential technical details of the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the
"optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature."
19. Some of the content of the disclosure to Taylor was embodied in a confidential
provisional patent application filed on July 20, 2007 and naming Plaintiff as an inventor that was
based, in part, on some of the Bubbles Around Your/Spheres of Influence trade secrets that
Plaintiff developed prior to his employment by Fatdoor, Inc. This provisional application was
never converted into a utility application and therefore was never published in the publicly
searchable United States Patent Office record.
20. Taylor continued to communicate with Plaintiff regarding Plaintiffs Trade Secrets
including but not limited to the Bubble Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news
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feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the
"community contribution feature" through August 2007. Plaintiff's disclosures of confidential
information regarding Plaintiff's Trade Secrets to Taylor during this time period were made
pursuant to the June 2007 oral confidentiality agreement, an oral confidentiality agreement
between Plaintiff and Taylor which was entered in July 2007 and which was acknowledged in
writing, and a written agreement that contained a confidentiality clause which was entered by
Taylor in August 2007.
21. Upon information and belief, Defendants misappropriated Plaintiff's Trade Secrets
by improper means including, but not limited to, stealing Plaintiff's Trade Secrets and disclosing
and using them in violation of the confidentiality agreements between Taylor and Plaintiff
including, but not limited to, the June 2007 oral confidentiality agreement, the July 2007 oral
confidentiality agreement acknowledged in writing, and the August 2007 written confidentiality
agreement, and/or with actual or constructive knowledge that Plaintiff's Trade Secrets were either
stolen and/or were disclosed in violation of the confidentiality agreements.
22. For example, Plaintiff's Trade Secrets were incorporated by the Defendants, into
the Facebook "smart lists" feature which is virtually identical to the Plaintiff's Bubbles Around
You/Spheres of Influence trade secret. Exhibit B shows the Facebook "manual lists" and "smart
lists" implemented in September 2011 show a geo-spatial radius from a user that is both
automatically set ("smart list") and manually editable by a user ("manual list").
23. As of January 18,2012, the Facebook website FAQ section mirrors concepts in the
Plaintiff's Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence trade secrets when it describes the new
Facebook feature as:
Lists are an optional way for to you organize your friends on
Facebook so you can filter the stories you see in News Feed or post
an update for specific people from one part of your life, like your
coworkers or friends who live near you.
(See Exhibit C, Facebook FAQ as of January 18,2012).
24. Facebook's website incorporates the Plaintiff's "smart list" feature that automatically
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groups lists of spheres of influence. The Facebook website described its "smart list" feature as
follows:
Smart lists are lists that update automatically based on info you
have in common with select friends, like a school, job or city. So, if
you live in San Francisco, you'll have a list of all of your Facebook
friends who live within 50 miles of San Francisco. You can change
this distance to adjust the size of the list, or manually add or remove
people from this list. This list updates automatically as your friends
update their profiles (timelines). For example, if 10 of your friends
live within 50 miles of San Francisco (according to their Facebook
profile/timeline), they'll be listed on your San Francisco smart list.
If2 other friends change their profile (timeline) to indicate that they
also live within 50 miles of San Francisco, your smart list will
automatically update to include them too.
(See Exhibit C.)
25. Examples of Plaintiff's "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization
feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature" can also be found on
Facebook's website. (See for example Exhibit J ("news feed feature"); Exhibit K ("like/emotion
feature"); Exhibit L ("claim feature"); and Exhibit M ("community contribution feature").)
26. Upon information and belief, examples of the information from Plaintiffs Trade Secrets
that were included in the confidential disclosures made by Plaintiff to the Taylor on or about June
2007 through August 2007 that are implemented by Facebook's website include, but are not
limited to, the "smart list" algorithms which automatically group users based on interest area,
location, profession, and interests; the "manual list" algorithms which allow users to manually
add themselves to various spheres of influence, to self elect themselves into different
communication circles, and to select various friends/contacts that they wished to include into
these circles; the algorithms that allow users in each sphere of influence to communicate with
other members in the same sphere of influence without these communications being made public
to non-members of the "smart list" and/or "manual list;" the algorithms and other knowhow
regarding the "news feed feature" which allows for social network demand aggregation,
notification; "like/emotions feature" which allows for the surfacing of user emotion; the
"optimization feature" which allows for user suggested ordering to influence feed ranking and
- 9
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geo-spatial social relationship analysis; the "claim feature" which allows for business page
claiming; and the "community contribution feature" which allows for geo-spatial feed exposure.
CAUSES OF ACTION
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
Misappropriation of Trade Secrets. Cal. Civ. Code 3426
27. Plaintiff incorporates herein by reference paragraphs 1 through 26 above.
28. Plaintiff conceived of and developed a series of trade secrets (previously
described above as Plaintiffs Trade Secrets) comprised of information including, but not limited
to, key product details, algorithms, security algorithms, database structures, user interface
designs, software code, product concepts, prototypes, methods, works of authorship, trademarks,
white papers, and instrumentalities, in association with the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of
Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization
feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution feature" prior to his employment
by Fatdoor, Inc. on December 26, 2006 (see paragraphs 7-9 and 16 through 19 above).
29. Plaintiffs Trade Secrets derived independent economic value by not being
generally known to the public because they allowed Plaintiff to execute, and use more quickly,
the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept.
30. Plaintiff took reasonable steps to maintain the secrecy of Plaintiff s Trade Secrets.
For example Plaintiff instructed his co-developers to keep the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of
Influence concept confidential (see paragraph 18 above); Plaintiffs initial disclosure of the
Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions
feature," the "optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the "community contribution
feature" to Taylor was pursuant to an oral confidentiality agreement (see paragraph 18 above)
later acknowledged in writing, as were his subsequent disclosures to Taylor (see paragraph 20
above).
- 10
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31. Upon information and belief, Defendant, Taylor knew or should have known that
his use of and/or disclosure of the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept, the "news
feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization feature," the "claim feature," and the
"community contribution feature," and other Plaintiffs' Trade Secrets as described above for use
in the Facebook website was both improper and in violation of the confidentiality agreements
with Plaintiff covering Plaintiff s Trade Secrets.
32. Upon information and belief, Defendant, Taylor is the Chief Technical Officer of
Facebook (see paragraph 5 and 14 above). For example, based on the close resemblance between
the "manual list" feature, "smart list" feature, "news feed feature," "like/emotions feature,"
"claim feature," and "community contribution feature" of Facebook's website and Plaintiff's
Trade Secrets, Taylor and through him Defendant Facebook, knew or should have known that the
Bubbles Around You/Spheres ofInfluence concept, as well as, other of Plaintiffs' Trade Secrets,
which Taylor and Facebook are using, had been obtained through improper means or in violation
of the confidentiality agreements between Taylor and Plaintiff or had been improperly disclosed
to Defendant Facebook. Numerous other examples alos are self evident as will be shown based
on the Plaintiffs Trade Secrets misappropriated by Facebook through Taylor.
33. As a proximate result of Defendants' misappropriation of Plaintiff s Trade Secrets,
Plaintiff has suffered actual damages, which to date include, but are not limited to, loss of his
contributory equity interests to the original Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept,
the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization feature," the "claim
feature," and the "community contribution feature" as well as other ones of the Plaintiff's Trade
Secrets as described herein, and expenses incurred in his efforts to remedy the effects of
Defendants' unlawful conduct, in an amount not now known, but Plaintiff is informed and
believes, and thereon alleges, exceeds the jurisdictional threshold for classification as an
- 11
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unlimited civil case. Additionally, unless Defendants are enjoined, such damages will increase,
and, as such, Plaintiff will seek leave of Court to amend this Complaint to set forth the exact
amount of damages when they have been ascertained.
34. Upon information and belief, Defendants, acted with malice, oppression, and/or
fraud when they misappropriated Plaintiff's Trade Secrets and have deliberately caused and have
intended to cause great economic harm to Plaintiff with full knowledge of the wrongfulness of
their conduct. Plaintiff is further informed and believes, and based thereon alleges, that
Defendants' conduct in association with their misappropriation of Plaintiffs Trade Secrets was
carried out by Defendants with a willful and conscious disregard of Plaintiff's rights, and
subjected Plaintiff to unjust hardship. Therefore, Plaintiff should be awarded punitive and
exemplary damages sufficient to punish Defendants for engaging in this conduct and to deter
similar conduct on their part in the future.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
Unjust Enrichment
35. Plaintiff incorporates herein by reference paragraphs 1 through 26 above.
36. As a result of the wrongful and unjust conduct of Defendants in association with
the manner in which they obtained access to the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence
'Concept as well as other ones of the Plaintiff's Trade Secrets(see paragraphs 7-26 above),
Defendants received the benefit of using the Bubbles Around You/Spheres of Influence concept,
the "news feed feature," the "like/emotions feature," the "optimization feature," the "claim
feature," and the "community contribution feature," and other ones of the Plaintiffs Trade
Secrets to develop the Facebook website and business and obtained the profits derived therefrom
without interference or competition by Plaintiff.
37. Defendants obtained these benefits at Plaintiffs expense. Plaintiff retained rights
in the trade secrets he developed prior to his employment by Fatdoor, Inc., including those trade
secrets, and the improvements thereon, underlying and incorporated into the Bubbles Around
- 12
PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELiEF
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obtained and wrongfully used by Defendants to develop the Facebook website in violation of
and/or with knowledge of the non-disclosure/confidentiality agreements between Plaintiff and
Taylor.
38. Because Defendants benefited from their wrongful and unjust conduct towards
Plaintiff that was in violation of the confidentiality agreements between Plaintiff and Taylor as
described herein above, Plaintiff is entitled to restitution based on the value of the benefits
received by Defendants.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays for judgment, be entered against Defendants, and each of
them as follows:
1. A Declaration that the infonnation provided to Defendants during the meeting(s)
which occurred between June 2007 and August 2007 contained Plaintiffs Trade
Secrets, and that all documents containing such trade secret infonnation be
destroyed or returned;
2. Economic damages in an amount to be proven at trial;
3. For restitution or disgorgement of the property of Plaintiff improperly converted
and/or obtained by unfair means and/or Defendants' wrongful acts;
4. For preliminary and pennanent injunctions enjoining Facebook, Inc., Taylor, their
officers, agents, servants, employees, and all other persons and entities acting in
concert with them, from directly or indirectly, using, copying, disclosing, applying
for patents, trademarks and domains, offering, providing, making or selling any
service or product or other item, using, incorporating, or derived from Plaintiff's
proprietary and trade secret infonnation, services, products, prototypes and
infonnation anywhere in the world, as described herein;
5. For interest therein at the legal rate;
- 13
PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELIEF
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6. For exemplary and punitive damages due to the willful and malicious conduct of
the Defendants, as set forth above;
7. For damages for the actual loss caused by the misappropriation by Defendants, as
well as the unjust enrichment caused by misappropriation that is not taken into
account in computing damages for actual loss; and
8. For such other relief that the Court deems just and proper.
Dated: January 20, 2012
Raj Abhyanker P.c.
B Y : ~ ~
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Attorneyfor Plaintiff,
Raj Vasant Abhyanker
JURY TRIAL DEMAND
Plaintiff hereby demands a jury trial for all causes of action alleged in his Complaint for
which he is entitled to a trial by jury.
Dated: January 20, 2012
Raj Abhyanker P.c.
B Y : ~ ~ ~
Lynn M. Terrebonne
Attorneyfor Plaintiff,
Raj Vasant Abhyanker
- 14
PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND EQUITABLE RELIEF
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