• by Ray Schultz , December 22, 2020

The bitter lawsuit between Email on Acid and 250ok over alleged theft of intellectual property seems stuck in the discovery phase and apparently will not go to trial until well into next year. 

At the request of both sides, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty has scheduled a discovery conference for January 6 at the U.S. District Courthouse in Denver. 

But the trial will not be held until sometime after a pre-trial conference scheduled for May 21, 2021.

In a motion filed last week, Email on Acid contends that 250ok has made ”every effort to obstruct discovery and avoid producing highly relevant documents that Email on Acid needs to prepare its case.”

It is not clear how the pandemic might be affecting the legal process.

In an amended complaint filed in October, Email On Acid alleges that after “licensing its technology and agreeing not to create a competing product, “250ok abused this access to create its own rip-off version of the product, marketed itself as a competitor to Email on Acid, and has attempted to poach Email on Acid’s customers.”

Email On Acid’s software-as-a-service allows users to view how emails will render in Gmail, Yahoo and other email platforms, and via mobile desktop and the web.

250ok denies the allegations, stating that the license agreement agreed to by the firm “speaks for itself.”

The company acknowledges that it “offered a suite of products that incorporated an email-rendering feature, of which Plaintiff was aware, both before and during the term of the License Agreement.

It also states that it “independently developed a back-end email-rendering engine to power that feature.” 

Email On Acid also charges that 250ok CEO Greg Kraios threatened Email On Acid CEO John Thies that 240ok “would either acquire Email on Acid or rip-off the Email Previews Service (despite the prohibition against doing so in the License Agreement).”

250ok acknowledges that “Mr. Kraios expressed to Mr. Thies that 250ok believed that it needed to acquire back-end email-rendering functionality similar to that provided by Plaintiff’s Email Previews Service, either by acquiring Plaintiff or by independently developing that technology.”

250ok was acquired by Validity last March, bringing in another possible complication. 

Despite the lawsuit, Validity “moved forward with the acquisition, taking possession and control of Email on Acid’s valuable trade secrets, the design, development, and technical specifications of, and technical information from, Email on Acid’s Email Previews Services product and API.”

MediaPost was unable to obtain comment by deadline.