Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

U.S. startup sues France's Orange over social calling app

Published 12/18/2014, 08:28 AM
Updated 12/18/2014, 08:28 AM
© Reuters.  U.S. startup sues France's Orange over social calling app

© Reuters. U.S. startup sues France's Orange over social calling app

By Ankush Sharma

(Reuters) - French telecom group Orange SA confirmed on Wednesday that it has been sued in California by San Francisco-based startup Telesocial in an intellectual property case, but said that the startup's claims were unfounded.

Orange said Telesocial has already taken the company to two French courts including the Paris Court of Appeal based on the same complaints, but in both cases the claims were rejected.

"This reinforces our view that Telesocial's complaints are totally lacking in merit," the group said in an emailed statement.

The complaints relate to an application that lets users make phone calls via their Facebook profiles.

According to an earlier report in the Financial Times on the subject, Telesocial said that the PartyCall app, launched in November 2012 by Orange, was based on its own code that it shared with the company during negotiation of a deal that the telecom carrier later dropped.

Telesocial's complaint included server logs that it claims show several Orange employees gaining unauthorized access to its servers to "copy and reverse engineer Telesocial's proprietary application and related technologies."

A Telesocial spokesman said on Wednesday that "it is not Telesocial but Orange which has had its case dismissed twice in France", adding that Telesocial had not called for a full examination of the case in France at this stage.

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.