Palatine firm says Google stole trade secrets

A Palatine company has sued Google Inc. claiming the world's most popular Internet search engine misappropriated trade secrets of a product the startup company built for Google's business software.

LimitNone LLC, a year-old Palatine-based company that developed a software tool for migrating e-mail and calendars to Google's Internet-based business programs, said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Chicago that the search engine copied the tool's design and incorporated it in a competing product.

LimitNone seeks compensation of as much as $950 million for lost revenue.

The suit alleges the misappropriation occurred several months after closely held LimitNone provided Google with confidential copies of the software, and received assurances that Google had no plans to develop a competing product. According to the suit, Google promoted the $19 LimitNone tool, called gMove at Google's urging, to its customers in April 2007, and in December said it was releasing a rival tool for free.

"The product copied gMove's look, feel, functionality and distribution model, including several unique and proprietary operations," according to the lawsuit.

Google spokesman Jon Murchinson didn't return a message left after business hours.

LimitNone's software tool allows users of Microsoft Corp.'s personal computer-based Outlook software to migrate e-mail, calendars and contact lists to Google's Web-based business software. LimitNone, which has fewer than five employees, stopped selling gMove, said Google attorney David Rammelt of Kelley Drye & Warren, Chicago, in an e-mail.