Fusion Garage Scoffs at Arrington’s Lawsuit

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It seems the feud between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch is far from over. Arrington and Co. filed a lawsuit against Fusion Garage on December 10, 2009 claiming fraud and deceit, misappropriation of business ideas and a string of other reasons in Northern District of California Federal court.
(Check out our hands-on with the Joojoo.)

Today, just now actually, Fusion Garage released the following statement in regards to the lawsuit.

FUSION GARAGE RESPONDS TO TECHCRUNCH LAWSUIT AND
DECEMBER 11 BLOG POST BY MICHAEL ARRINGTON
COMPANY STATEMENT
DECEMBER 17, 2009

The lawsuit filed by TechCrunch against Fusion Garage and accompanying December 11, 2009 blog post
by Michael Arrington are without merit. We will vigorously defend ourselves against the suit’s claims in
court. The December 11 blog post by Arrington makes several hollow allegations including:

Lack of Viable Funding/Our Shareholders/Cash Flow:
• Fusion Garage is a properly capitalized start up that has received $3M in funding to date and is preparing to announce a new round within the coming weeks. The Company is a viable concern whose financial status more than enables it to fully develop and bring to market its intellectual
property commercialized in the form of joojoo.

• Fusion Garage has various angel investors that are well-respected business people in the Singapore community. Like many international angel investors, Dr. Bruce Lee is a successful entrepreneur with several profitable ventures. Additionally, Fusion Garage is proud of the other investors on its rosters – many of whom have invested in previous ventures founded by Rathakrishnan. Fusion Garage went out and secured funding – tangible proof of Fusion Garage’s “doer” status relative to the alleged yet intangible claims of investment by TechCrunch. Pre-sales have indeed begun and, with or without them, the Company has sufficient funds to bring the joojoo to market and defend itself against the baseless claims of TechCrunch.

Pegatron IP Ownership:
• Another example of Fusion Garage “doer status” in bringing the joojoo to market is the Company’s now defunct relationship with ODM Pegatron. Fusion Garage established this relationship after Arrington’s promises of hardware development support proved to be hollow.

• Fusion Garage is now working with another top tier ODM to develop a completely new board
and mechanical layout that is the basis for the joojoo.

• To state, as the lawsuit and accompanying blog post do, that Fusion Garage’s joojoo is based on
any Pegatron IP is false.

As for the ongoing personal attacks against Rathakrishnan, they do not deserve a point by point response. Arrington’s attacks on Rathakrishnan’s past business activities are unfounded. The points he raises are old news and raise the question of why he would want to do business with Rathakrishnan if his past was so controversial. Dredging up old and nebulous material only reflects his desperation for material.

Fusion Garage is proud to have introduced the joojoo last week and is equally proud of the positive feedback the product received by industry influencers and media. We have received more than 6,000 email inquiries to our website and pre-orders to date have exceeded our expectations. We have no reason to believe that the legal action taken against Fusion Garage will prevent the joojoo from reaching market.

Since our first public statements on the joojoo, we have taken the high road regarding past interactions with Arrington and TechCrunch. We find Arrington’s ongoing attempts to bully public opinion and members of the media to be the sad rants of a person championing a losing cause.