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In an interesting bit of news, the battle of the kiddie tabs is underway in San Diego where a lawsuit was filed today by the makers of the Nabi tablet — a kid-friendly Android tablet for the whole family. Turns out Nabi tab creator Fuhu is suing Toys R Us for allegedly stealing “trade secrets,” which they then used to (allegedly) release the Tabeo — Toys R Us’ new kid-friendly tab on the block.
The drama began after Toys R Us agreed to become the exclusive retailer of the Nabi tablet back in October of last year (which we covered here), only Fuhu felt Toys R Us not only did little to promote the tablet, but barely ordered enough of the tabs for a single day’s sell-though (vs the entire holiday season). Fuhu was left scratching their heads as to what heppened, only later to learn that Toys R Us was releasing their own kiddie tab called the Tabeo to be sold exclusively at their retail stores across the country.
Fuhu is now asking Toys R Us for monetary damages due to a failed holiday season launch, as well as the courts to step in and ban the Tabeo from sale (currently only available for pre-order). In the complaint, Fuhu accuses Toys R Us of your typical wrong doing — fraud, breach of contract, etc. — but also goes on to claim that Toys R Us stole the look of their (un-patented) “butterfly” bumper when designing their own Tabeo. Hmmmm.. where have I heard this before? In the legal paperwork, Fuhu said,
“Toys R Us used Fuhu’s trade secrets and confidential information to start selling Tabeo, which systematically attempts to replicate the Nabi experience, far earlier than Toys r Us could have done otherwise, if at all.”
Recently, Fuhu released the Nabi 2, the Nvidia Tegra 3 packing, Ice Cream Sandwich running follow up to the original Nabi tab. The Nabi 2 is currently available from retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon for only $200.
[Reuters]
this is the most legit case yet though…. i mean that is something that actually COULD be considered “design-art” and its unique enough but those two look pretttty much the same
Its probably not going to stand due to the fact that im sure not many people know of either 2 of the companies who actually makes the devices. You can’t sue target the thing was made by Nabi and I seen the red one in Best buy actually.
i saw a nabi at walmart recently
what a wuss for taddling :]
Does Judge Koh have kids, or nieces/nephews?….yeah, Im sure you can finish the joke so I won’t bother… O.o
Hmmm, let’s see, TRU promises to sell tons of Nabi’s but then only sells a fraction of what it could. Potential customers clamor for the ability to buy one, but are not able to – they come out a few at a time at a few TRU stores. Finally Fuhu gets fed up, says good bye to TRU and launches their next tablet with retailers that actually stock their new device, what a novelty! Then, just a month or so after that 2nd Nabi is released, TRU announces their own tablet which looks curiously like the Nabi and whose hardware specs are actually very similar to the original Nabi (and much inferior to the Nabi 2). I’d be awfully suspicious that TRU actually intentionally sabotaged the success of the original Nabi so that Fuhu would be a non-player and would not be competition for them once they came out with their own tablet…
Yup. That’s pretty much what Fuhu is accusing TRU of.. Sounds pretty damaging.
It’s sneaky and devious so it could be breach of contract but I don’t think you can say that anything was stolen.
I actually agree with this only because of the suspicious behavior of toys r us… Good for them for widening their retail base.
This one actually seems legit
right? a real lawsuit!
Battle for the bottom continues…
When I saw the yellow toys’r’us one I immediately thought of the nabi.
Is that an iPad?
This is very legit. Not only did Toys”R”Us NOT deliver on the Nabi Tablet during the holiday season – they also did NOT deliver on the Archos Childpad Tablet (preorders). I am sure they probably just nixed it for the capacitive screen version rather than the resistive. What I see here is a very, very similar looking Archos ChildPad Tablet (which is horrible by the way) with a which has been rebranded.
At least Apple’s not in this one
If you type Nabi in the search box on Toys R Us site the only tablet that pops up is the Tabeo. If you type in tablet in the search box a list of tablets pops up . Hmmmm.