My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

I wish I knew someone who used Opera so I could ask them to start boycotting it.

I hope he has checked this with a lawyer and that he is not giving his adversary ammunition. Good luck.

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 <i>very</i> strong case.<p>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.<p>Not sure what the laws are or where Opera is headquartered, though so IP laws may be vastly different.

For somebody who doesn't want to talk about the case, he sure does talk about the case an awful lot!

In Norway, it's usual for employees to sign intellectual copyright waivers for all work done for their employers. If Trond developed parts of the CB browser and/or other intellectual property whilst working for Opera (during office hours), they could easily claim - and probably win - a case that parts and/or all of the CB browser rightfully belonged to Opera Software. I haven't read their lawsuit, I'm just saying that the case might be more complicated that one person's blog post.<p>There was an (in parts) similar case to this one in Norway about Nettby.no, the so-called "Fredrik Kristiansen vs Dagbladet" (Google it if you're interested).

pretty sad to here this from opera. i've been an avid opera user for the last 10 years. i haven't seen as much innovation in any other browser like ive seen in opera. from mouse gestures to tab grouping to the closed tabs list to a million other features that were first in opera and slowly migrated to all the other browsers. sure websites sometimes didn't render properly and no one ever cared to properly support it, but still they were always on the cutting edge feature wise.<p>although this doesn't change my stance on using opera, i hope this results in a ousting of the current ceo.

I find it interesting that Opera are trying to claw back revenue on old innovations while seemingly stagnating.<p>The rendering engine they're dumping in favour of WebKit is fast and slick. The number of new <i>user visible</i> features and the rate of releases has seemed sluggish to me for what must be 4 or 5 years.

Now let's hear Opera's side of the story.

It's ironic that both the companies which are proponet of non-profit open source software are engaged in this battle. Opera's legal counsel need to reassess this case, I don't think they can get $3.4million from this guy, what is the point of going after him?

Opera employee here. Anon for obvious reasons XD<p>Didn't work there when Trond did so I can't speak to his moral standing, but there's been talk around the water cooler about the lawsuit.<p>Several people who worked with Trond in 2009-2010 (and even before 2006) are still here and the impression I'm getting is that they're annoyed with Trond for taking all the credit for the work and ignoring all the work they put into the stuff he later handed to Mozilla.<p>He pretends to be the lone innovator but the truth is he got plenty of help. He took a healthy paycheck from Opera and then turned around and handed the results over to Mozilla.<p>My 2¢: He's going to lose the lawsuit.

I am pretty sure that the negative PR that this lawsuit will bring more damaging to Opera than any trade secrets.

For Mozilla itself, other than possibly being painted in a somewhat negative light, do they have any chance of becoming the "co-defendant" in this suit? (They'll surely be called as a witness)

Time to uninstall Opera from my computer.

You and the guys who work at Xenforo can have a my old employer is suing me party. Curious, what idiot in management at Opera decided to MITM attack https traffic on mobile platform for "optimizations"?

I think he meant to write "My company's former customer".

BoycottOpera.JS :-)<p>&#60;script type="text/javascript"&#62;<p><pre><code> if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Opera') !== -1) { alert("Hello Opera User! I encourage you to uninstall Opera and use Mozilla Firefox instead. Click OK to learn why."); document.location = "http://trondblog.tumblr.com/post/49192504201/so-my-former-employer-opera-software-has-filed-a" } </code></pre> &#60;/script&#62;

Opera, you are dead to me.

Do providers of other browsers that use tabs have some sort of licensing deal with Opera? Seems like they are suing over trade secrets based on Firefox tabs?<p>Why are they suing the guy and not Mozilla, why are there no lawsuits against other companies that provide browsers?<p>Feels like a FU-cause-we-can type of deal.

Honest question: How would Opera Software prove in court that Trond Hansen stole browser ideas/feature concepts (if I'm reading it correctly)? Subpoena Mozilla's emails? My gut says if this goes to court it will devolve into "he said/she said".

As far as I know, the one making the accusations has to present proof. Am I wrong? Is it so simple that saying "Oh, by the way, I believe he stole my idea." is enough to sue someone?<p>No one would (Or "should" maybe) be so stupid as to go for that.

Regardless of the facts in this case, this screams to me that Opera is fucked, they know it, and will grab anything they can on the way down. What other conclusion could you possibly draw?

Just because something is a trade secret doesn't mean someone else can't think of it. That's the risk you run when you don't patent an idea.

This is probably a terrible idea to publish!

I would say the absolute worst thing he could have done was write this article. I'm sure his attorney will agree.

IANAL: So here's my advice: Get a lawyer.

You so naughty

So let me get this straight, Opera is suing you because they think you gave away secrets. It appears they have no hard evidence, no emails, no phone conversations, just someone talking about ideas. I would personally laugh at them and think about all of the money I would get when they lose.<p>Also Opera needs your millions so that they can continue to support a piece of software that no one uses. (Chrome FTW!)

incredibly lame thing to do to former employees. if you can't innovate, sue!

I'm also leaving Opera for good now.

Fuck Opera. Their software sucks. Now even more.