Man sues Uber for a BEEELLION dollars over alleged theft of concept

Uber is being sued by the founder of a small wireless business who claims Uber stole his idea for a ride-sharing app.

Kevin Halpern, founder of a company called Celluride Wireless, is suing Uber and its CEO Trevor Kalanick, along with several other early investors in the company, accusing them of having misappropriated trade secrets and being in breach of contract.

Legal documents show Halpern is claiming damages in excess of $1 billion. His company was founded in 2003, six years before Uber.

Uber has dismissed the claims as "completely baseless".

The suit alleges that Kalanick stole the idea of a taxi app from Halpern in 2006, when the men worked in neighbouring office spaces in San Francisco.

Halpern's claim indicates that, at the time, he was developing his own mobile-based, private-car-hailing service, and that one of the few parties that Halpern trusted with the details of his company was Trevor Kalanick, who later went on to found Uber.

The Celluride boss has uploaded a video to YouTube in which he alleges that "Kalanick created an exact replica of Celluride and called it Uber".

Christopher Dolan, Halpern's attorney, has handled other civil cases against Uber and gave his own press conference in which he claimed that Halpern was "the creator of the ride-sharing industry concept".

Halpern previously filed a lawsuit in 2009 against Anu Shukla, alleging an agreement had been violated to offer him founders' shares in her company Offerpal.

The case was thrown out by a California state judge after Halpern disregarded a California court's evidence discovery orders. ®