Apple’s Beats has been sued by audio-equipment maker Monster over stealing headphone technology. The company says that it had played an important role in design and engineering the popular headphones.
Monster has filed a lawsuit against Apple’s Beats Electronics, claiming that the high-end-headphone maker’s co-founders allegedly conspired to sever the headphone line from Monster before Apple bought the company last year for $3.2 billion. The law alleges Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and rapper Dr Dre pirated the “Beats By Dr Dre” headphone line from Monster and its CEO Noel Lee. The company alleges in the suit that Beats hid the co-created work Monster and Lee put in to the design, manufacture and distribution of the original Beats headphones, then sold 51 percent of the company to HTC for $300 million. Soon after the HTC deal, Iovine and Dre reacquired 25.5 percent of Beats, by using a “change of control” clause in the contract that effectively severed ties with Monster. Monster also claims that the company has lost millions owing to the “fraudulent activities” and “sham transactions”.
This is the second lawsuit on Beats as the first one was brought by the Bose Corporation over patented technology for canceling noise in earphones in 2014.