Crunchpad/JooJoo war of words heats up with lawsuit and recent interview

On Friday, Michael Arrington announced that TechCrunch had filed suit against Fusion Garage, its former partner in the development of the Crunchpad Internet tablet. Gadgetell has covered the oft-delayed Crunchpad, which was pronounced dead by Arrington last November after he alleged that Fusion Garage tried to sell the product without his company’s involvement. Soon after, Fusion Garage resurrected the Crunchpad under a new name – JooJoo.

As expected, TechCrunch has sued Fusion Garage and the two companies have very different accounts over who owns the right to the JooJoo/Crunchpad. TechCrunch claims it “conceived, initiated, developed, directed, and promoted the CrunchPad project” and provided cash and other business resources. In its court filings, TechCrunch says it worked side-by-side with Fusion Garage throughout the development process, only to be told “out of the blue” that Fusion Garage wanted to cut TechCrunch out of the deal. In a blog post, Arrington even alleges that his company paid for direct expenses because Fusion Garage was taking on “unsavory investors and borderline loan sharks.”

Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan says there was “no investment or no contractual or business relationships between both parties” and that this wasn’t even a handshake deal. He counters that Fusion Garage took on the risks during development, hired the talent, and performed the duties to build the device. In this video interview with Engadget, Rathakrishnan reveals new details about the JooJoo and the company’s relationship with Arrington.

Read [TechCrunch] Read [Engadget]