The lawsuit with the federal court in Texas seeks to block Apple from using her work and claims unspecified amount in damages based on Apple’s profits from the feature and her own lost business opportunity due to the stealing
An African-American businesswoman has sued Apple Inc. for an unspecified amount, alleging that the company copied her idea of offering users five skin tones for emojis.
Katrina Parrott debuted her copyrighted method which allows users to pick their choice of skin tone for emojis called ‘iDiversicons’ on Apple’s App Store in 2013 and iTunes in 2014, which she alleges was stolen by the tech giant, Bloomberg reported.
She alleges two of the company’s senior software engineers got a close look at her innovation during a series of meetings in 2014 for a partnership deal, but then released their own five-skin tone keyboard modified pallet in April 2015.
After its own skin-tone emojis were released, Apple dropped iDiversicons from its App Store and iTunes, she added.
Parrott has filed a lawsuit with the federal court in Waco, Texas accusing Apple of copyright and trade dress infringement, unfair enrichment, unfair competition and misappropriation of ideas and technology.
Her petitions seek to block Apple from using her work and claims unspecified amount in damages based on Apple’s profits from the feature and her own lost business opportunity due to the stealing.
Apple did not respond to queries, the report added.