Israeli connected car company Otonomo has been accused of API (application programming interface) theft by US rival Smartcar. The US connected car company says it has filed and delivered a cease and desist letter to Otonomo and charges that the Israeli company has plagiarized its API files. Smartcar has also published screenshots detailing the alleged theft and CEO Sahas Katta has published a post insisting that Otonomo has illrgally cloned its product.
Katta has told "TechCrunch," “We do have evidence of several of their employees systemically using our product with behavior indicating they wanted to copy our product in both form and function. It would be a one in a quintillion chance of them happening to land on the same randomly generated string.”
Otonomo CMO Lisa Joy told "TechCrunch" that “The materials that Smartcar put on their post are all publicly accessible documentation, It’s all public domain content.”
But Katta insists the materials are copyrighted and their legal IP.
Otonomo, which has developed a cloud platform for autonomous, connected vehicles, has raised $53 million to date including a recent $10 million investment by Korea's SK Group. The Herzliya-based company is reportedly in the middle of raising a $50-100 million financing round, which could be effected by Smartcar's accusations.
Otonomo said, "Otonomo prides itself on providing a completely unique offering backed by our own intellectual property and patents. We take Smartcar's questions seriously and are conducting an investigation, but we remain confident that our rigorous standards of integrity remain uncompromised. If our investigation reveals any issues, we will immediately take the necessary steps to address them."
Otonomo was founded in 2015 by CEO Ben Vokow.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on April 23, 2019
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