[dkrich]

I'll admit that I am no IP expert but I'm told that winning an IP suit is impossibly difficult and extremely expensive. To pursue it, you really better believe that you have a tremendous amount of upside (ie, deep pockets on the other side) and that you have a very strong case.

You might say that they are "just suing for $3.4 million" and that they might settle out of court, but I'd bet that unless Opera has a really strong in-house counsel in this area, this whole story will evaporate pretty soon. Usually things like this start out because one party is pissed-off and then once cooler heads prevail they realize it's just not worth it and move on.

Not sure what the laws are or where Opera is headquartered, though so IP laws may be vastly different.

[devcpp]

They probably just want to tell their employees that sharing "trade secrets" won't be tolerated. Nothing better for that than a lawsuit with ridiculous amounts of money. It might fail but it sends a strong message.

Not that I don't despise this kind of practices...

[sleepyhead]

Actually $3.4m is not that little in Norwegian court. Amounts paid out from lawsuits are a lot less compared to what is normal in the states.

Also the judges here have very little knowledge about IT so I agree that winning the case will be difficult for Opera. My previous company had a lawsuit against a competitor and lost largely due to the judge having no knowledge of IT.

[zurn]

Norway, and how different depends on what you're comparing with. Probably not too expensive for his means.

[Androidmeda]

I don't think this is a regular IP suit. It's more like a breach of contract or something. Opera likely hadn't legally protected the features/designs that were stolen, which would be why the theft would be such a bad thing for them.

It's been a year since the video that triggered the lawsuit was published. I doubt that someone at Opera has been pissed off for a year and done this without thinking through it at all.