Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has been sued over the theft of a business idea from a Connecticut business professor named Ralph Reilly.
Rob Price and Becky Peterson for Business Insider:
According to Reilly, the pair had agreed to establish a futuristic “tech university,” sealing the deal with an on-camera handshake. It was an ambitious plan for a 21-century educational platform to teach adults much-needed technical skills, using Wozniak’s name and legendary status as cofounder of the world’s most iconic computing company to brand the institution.
But Wozniak has a different recollection. The veteran engineer often known as “Woz” has said the meeting was one of dozens of photo-ops he conducts on a near-daily basis with his fans and admirers — so mundane he doesn’t even remember the photograph being taken.
Despite further emails and meetings, the partnership never got off the ground — and has erupted into a million-dollar lawsuit, Insider has learned. Reilly alleges that Wozniak stole his intellectual property and infringed on his copyright by launching a Woz-branded tech school [Woz U] without him, while Wozniak’s team counters that he never had a real deal with Reilly and that he’s inundated with business proposals from admirers.
MacDailyNews Take: Is Apple building ‘The Device?’
