> He laid claims to a number of our designs such as our website utilizing a top navigation bar, our photo of the designer operating a sewing machine, etc.
> In short, the claims are as outlandish as we perceived
If the claims are so ridiculous why haven't they posted the claim? Why are we supposed to trust what they have to say?
Also this line reads very curiously:
> the mentor gave them words of blessing for future success.
it's as if they're trying to say "he said it was okay to take the work we did there and use it in the future"? I don't get that sentence.
Something about the way this is written feels weird.
Based on the conflicting statements the interns wrote, this is how I would put it:
"Thanks for all your help help, Mentor. We'll be off! [And we're taking your designs with us!]"
"Sure thing kids, go crazy. Do whatever you want! [I don't know that you're taking any of my designs to create competing products.] Good luck! You'll need it [because you don't have any designs and it will take you a while to come up with good ones]!"
Kids post to kickstarter using their mentor's proprietary designs, and get tons of funding to make products based on their mentor's designs.
Mentor sees them stealing the designs he spent months/years working on and sues.
A admittedly cursory look at both websites doesn't show any obvious copying (unless there is some sort if internal structural magic you can't see in pictures). Besides, the article only mentioned things like the website navigation and promo pictures. Not product infringement. Although as others have mentioned, we are only getting one side of the story.
It's an attempt at a web 2.0 'serious reply' while being very concerned about coming across as reasonable. If there's more to this story the people behind Vinted Goods are in for a rude shock that good PR isn't about a reasonable sounding blog post with a community outreach angle. That's a tactic for taking on faceless multinationals who move slowly.
"Mentor" was training (grooming) these interns so that they would eventually work at his company.
Interns decided to move out on their own (nothing wrong there),
Interns signed some kind of overly general internship / employment contract that included some form of non-compete which he's leveraging to strengthen his lawsuit.
If I'm mistaken and the mentor's lawsuit really is as weak as the founders exclaim - this should be thrown out fairly quickly - the increase in PR will probably lead to a larger Kickstarter round - all will end well.
>Interns signed some kind of overly general internship / employment contract that included some form of non-compete which he's leveraging to strengthen his lawsuit.
That doesn't seem to be the case here, from TFA. It seems that it's more of a general IP infringement claim.
And regarding their website at that, not their products. A cursory look at the products on both companies websites doesn't show any obvious copying of products designs. And if killspenser thinks they own the idea of a top navigation bar...
I will agree though, we have heard only one side of the story.
The interns note that they were accused of stealing designs in the mentor's complaint. They never address this, and talk instead about website infringement issues.
If the suit relates to the misappropriation of their mentor's designs, they are in hot water. If the suit is merely about them copying the website, then it may blow over fairly quickly.
