October 16, 2008
Brewer accused of ripping-off iBeer idea
The magician and inventor whose creation is at the centre of a multimillion dollar lawsuit over a download which transforms the iPhone into a virtual glass of beer says he was surprised and hurt to discover that his idea had been pilfered. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Steve Sheraton, the magician, invented an interactive application called iBeer last year and began selling it from his own website as a $US2.99 download for the iPhone.
When activated, iBeer transforms the iPhone into a virtual glass of beer. Users can pretend to drink the simulated beer by titling the phone on an angle, which then empties the glass.
But when Apple launched its official iPhone App Store in July this year, Sheraton's download was not the only digitial beer gimmick on offer.
Coors, the US division of the world's fifth-largest brewer, also offered a similar interactive application called iPint, a free download promoting its Carling brand of beer.
Hottrix, a small Las Vegas-based novelty software company, which now owns the rights to the Sheraton's digital gimmicks, last week filed a lawsuit against Coors, seeking $US12.5 million in damages for lost profits and the brewer's "ill-gotten gains".
The suit claims that iPint had been downloaded over six million times since it launch on July 11 and being a free download, "significantly' impairing the number of iBeer (paid) downloads.
Read full article.
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2008/10/021475.htm