Who has the strong suit? Tech publisher, former execs sue each other

TechTarget of Newton says three former executives stole its proprietary information to build a competing business and filed suit yesterday to get them to knock it off. The executives, who now run a company called Prelytix, countered with their own suit, saying TechTarget is not all that, that they've built a new business based entirely on software they bought from another company and that a judge should order TechTarget to leave them alone.

At issue is how the two companies say they can identify the sort of people at large companies who make expensive purchases of computer and networking equipment. TechTarget, founded in 1999, runs a series of Web sites on which it tracks every click of its registered users, building up a database it then uses to target specific ads in a program called IT Deal Alerts. Prelytix, founded last fall by Marc LaPlante and brothers Michael and Scott Kelly, says it runs an online ad network targeted at these "enterprise" purchasers and says its Project Indication Engine software can tell advertisers which of those prospective buyers are most in the mood to buy expensive gear.

It is inconceivable that LaPlante, M. Kelly, and S. Kelly, could conceive of and release a wholly new product like PIE, in just a few months when it fook an experienced team of fifteen employees, including software developers, at TTGT more than a year aad a half to conceive of, create, test, and launch ITDA. The Defendants were able to save substantial time and virtually all development costs, by virtue of their misappropríation and use of the proprietary, confidential and trade secrct information concerning ITDA from TTGT.

In its lawsuit, filed in US District Court, TechTarget says it fired two of the three for being bad people who couldn't meet their own sales goals and that all three violated non-compete and proprietary-information agreements that were part of their contracts.

TechTarget alleges one of the three got pissed when the company changed the eligibility requirements for a sales-department event and he no longer qualified. In response, the company charges, he treated his wife to an $853.34 Valentine's Day dinner in Boston, then charged it to his corporate credit card - and claimed the dinner was really for entertaining two TechTarget customers. TechTarget says it fired him after confronting him with a receipt proving the dinner was for just two people, not three.

It claims one of the other two was let go for deteriorating sales goals and bad behavior at work, including "drinking alcoholic beverages during business hours at lunch."

And it claims the third executive then served as a "double agent," collecting information and contacts related to its impending new "deals" ad-targeting program for them even as he knew he was about to quit to join them.

In their suit, the three deny they used any of the knowledge they learned or helped develop at that company in setting up Prelytix last fall, and most certainly did not access TechTarget's computer systems after they left the company. They are seeking a declaratory judgment to order TechTarget to knock it off.

TechTarget has falsely claimed that PIE was created by using TechTarget’s confidential, proprietary and trade secret information that Plaintiffs stole from Techtarget by, inter alia, accessing its computer system. In fact, plaintiffs did not even create PIE. Rather, PIE is owned by another company, and Prelytix simply gave the name "PIE" to that product and obtained the right to re-sell it pursuant to a reseller agreement.