10 Billion Dollar Ideas That Were Stolen
It is amazing how we interact with some things regularly but are not aware about their history, so here we have collected some surprising information about renowned stuff that have been based on plagiarized plans.
The well known and loved series of Harry Potter faced some serious accusations of plagiarism in 2009 for copying the plot of Adrian Jacobs’ book in the part ‘Goblet of fire’. Rowling denied the allegations and even claimed of never going through Jacobs’ books. Thus, the case was rejected in 2001.
Microsoft’s operating system
The widely used operating system of Microsoft has been in the rumors regarding the software MS-DOS code that has been copied from CP/M, developed by Gary Kildall. Although those rumors could not be supported by any evidence but an engineer, Bob Zeidman, is still devoted in proving the relation between these two.
Apple’s gadgets
IPhone and IPad which are known to be the most unique gadgets of the world are actually unique or not? Because in 2016, they had been sued for $10 billion dollars by Thomas S. Ross as he declared that Steve Jobs stole his design of a reading gadget. Along with compensation, Ross even claimed of royalty for all the devices that would be sold. The case still continues without any decision.
The controversy of Uber
The transportation system developed by Travis Kalanick has stayed in the headlines due to the controversies since always. He has even been accused by Kevin Halpern, a business tycoon, who operates a comparable transport organization. Kevin sued Travis of $1 billion dollar in 2015 for stealing his idea of a GPS-based transportation system.
Oreo biscuits
Oreo biscuits that have been regarded as “America’s favorite cookies”, since the time of their inception in 1912. Although there are some hints that it might have been copied from a similar product, Hydrox cookies that had started just 4 years prior to it. The company of hydrox tried their best to compete with Oreo but failed in doing so and resulted in being discontinued by the year 1999.
Lego building blocks
Undoubtedly, this toy remains the favorite of all children till day. But it is still hard to believe that from where did such an incredible idea came? Well, some people think that it has been stolen from ‘Kiddicraft’s self-locking building blocks’ that started a decade before Lego. Both the toys show some undeniable similarity and thus, this thought does seem close to reality.
Avatar – The Movie
The movie which released in 2009 earning a substantial profit was Avatar. Just after a few days it had reached the cinema, the movie faced some steady criticism from the public, accusing it of being a resemblance of similar other movies. The criticism started converting into legal actions when in 2011 Bryant Moore sued it of $2.5 billion claiming it of being a mixture of two of his screenplays. The court hearings continued for 3 years, and then the judge rejected the plagiarism case in 2014.
Snapchat – The Snap App
This application is one of the most lucrative businesses of the world. The idea of this app was given by 3 friends of Stanford University, namely Evan Spigel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. It all started when Spigel and Murphy made a plan of kicking out Brown from their team, which was unfortunately heard by Brown and he took legal action suing them both and claiming of owning the original design and the logo of the application.
Jack Daniel’s whiskey
In 2016 the owners of a 150 years-old brand confessed that the recipe of their famous whiskey was in fact not theirs originally. They declared that the recipe was not provided by Dan Call but his servant who belonged to Tennessee. Thus, the credit for the rich revenue that it generates goes to Neeris Green and not Dan Call.
The mystery of Facebook
The outstanding social networking site which has expanded all over the word has some suspicious roots. Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of facebook was accused in 2004, just a week after launching his site that he had robbed the idea of his roommates. The students of Harvard even claimed that they had established a networking system for the student community which had been illegally used by Zuckerberg.
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