The Cannes Silver Lion-winning iPint application for beer brand Carling is the target of a $12.5 million lawsuit against parent Molson Coors Brewing Co. by Hottrix, the developer of the iBeer application. London agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay created iPint.
Wired’s Gadget Lab blog broke the story, and included a PDF of the lawsuit, filed Friday afternoon in Los Angeles County.
According to the lawsuit, Beattie McGuinness Bungay contacted Hottrix to license the developer’s $3 iBeer application, which uses the accelerometer inside the iPhone to simulate drinking a beer. Nevada-based Hottrix, whose application was one of the most downloaded in the iPhone App Store, rejected the request. The lawsuit contends Beattie McGuinness went around Hottrix, creating a near copy of the app, called iPint, from Sweden’s Illusion Labs. IPint was released for free, causing iBeer sales to suffer.
Lawyers for Hottrix said that after the developer couldn’t reach an agreement with Coors following iPint’s release, Hottrix contacted Apple, which removed iPint from the U.S. App Store. The application is still available abroad. The suit asserts there have been more than 6 million downloads of the free iPint.
In an e-mail statement, Jason H. Fisher, a lawyer representing Hottrix, said, “Hottrix is a small mom-and-pop company that takes the protection of its intellectual property very seriously. Hottrix has been developing its digital ‘tricks’ since it debuted the ‘e-Spresso’ for the Palm Pilot in 1999.”
Clearly iPint’s popularity comes from the fact that it shares a central feature with iBeer – the app appears to fill users’ iPhones with beer, which they can then “drain” by tipping the phone – and only costs exposure to the Carling brand, as opposed to the $3 fee for iBeer. The iPint was developed as part of a mini game created for Carling, called Barslide. In it, players help a sliding pint avoid obstacles on the bar, and are rewarded with a frosty virtual beverage. Players don’t need the game to use the iPint beer-tipping feature.
The lawsuit stresses the game is only there to mask the theft of iBeer. “On information and belief, the [game] was added to create a false distinction” between the iPint app and iBeer, according to the suit.
Although Hottrix claims Coors is “vicariously liable” for the actions of its agency, Beattie McGuinness, others may also be liable. Hottrix. The lawsuit names “Does 1-10,” anonymous entities Hottrix will be allowed to amend once it identifies the parties responsible. According to the suit, Does 1-10 “may be liable under one or more of the claims in the matter complained of herein.”
Inquiries to Coors, Beattie McGuinness and Illusion Labs went unanswered.
IPint was produced by Illusion Labs in Malm
