Steve Wozniak sued over alleged 'Woz U' copyright infringement

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is being sued for copyright infringement for allegedly taking the idea of producing a tech school bearing his name, a concept that was apparently talked about years before the establishment of "Woz U."

In 2017, Steve Wozniak launched "Woz U," a programming boot camp that offered courses on learning to code. While that effort had complaints of quality issues shortly after launch, it seems that Wozniak is in some legal trouble over an earlier educational effort.

Ralph Reilly, a Connecticut business professor, is suing Wozniak over an alleged failed attempt to set up a similar "tech university" dating back to 2011. Court filings for the lawsuit, reported by Gizmodo and Insider, has Reilly seeking at least $1 million in damages for Wozniak supposedly taking the idea.

Reilly claims Wozniak agreed to create the tech university, which would rely on Wozniak's name and reputation for branding. A claim supposedly proven by an on-camera handshake by the two men in 2011, though apparently, Reilly corresponded with Wozniak via email for months from September 2010.

It is claimed Reilly asked for Wozniak to endorse the launch of the "Woz Institute of Technology," which Wozniak allegedly agreed to via email. At the time of the photography, Reilly allegedly provided Wozniak with a contract to grant an online school in Connecticut the use of the Wozniak name and the "Woz School of Technology."

In a deposition, Wozniak said he didn't remember signing such a document, but apparently didn't dispute the signature on the document.

Not long after the meeting, Wozniak's team moved away from the effort and Reilly. In 2013, when Reilly launched a mock website for the Woz Institute of Technology, Wozniak's manager Ken Hardesty demanded Reilly took the site down and stop contacting Wozniak directly.

After Wozniak launched "Woz U," Reilly was apparently told by the man "You had the right idea. I doubt it would have happened without your initial idea!" When Reilly asked for partial ownership of the project and faced silence, Reilly moved to sue for IP theft and copyright infringement.

Reilly secured copyright protection of the website, which forms part of the copyright lawsuit against Wozniak.

The Apple co-founders team claims that a deal wasn't reached, and the handshake was one of many photo-ops Wozniak takes with fans. Part of his defence is that Wozniak apparently is hands-off about his business affairs, which are instead negotiated by his team.

The lawsuit will take place in Arizona across three days from June 7. Wozniak has been called to testify in court.

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16 Comments

killroy 17 Years · 286 comments

About 3 years ago

There's a big smell to this.

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

Poor Woz, not a business brain cell in his head. Great pioneering engineer, lousy entrepreneur and businessman who tends to be taken advantaged of, starting with Steve Jobs. A nice, lovable but gullible guy.

DAalseth 6 Years · 3067 comments

IANAL so I don't know the ins and outs of these things.
But hasn't Wozniak been doing all sorts of tech educational things over the decades? Then how would this be infringement? Sounds more like one of many initiatives Wozniak has done.
The guy says his idea was for it to use Wozniak's name, but it's Wozniak's name. How can he sue Wozniak for infringing on the use of his own name? Woz should have the copyright on his own name.
Ok so there was an attempt to start this sort of thing, but it died ten years ago. Doing something similar a decade later infringes on a completely defunct and moribund idea how?
Sounds like if this guy really thought he had a case he should have sued Wozniak a decade ago for breach of contract. It just seems like he thinks that because the deal fell apart a decade ago he has first refusal rights on anything similar Wozniak ever does for the rest of his life.
Or am I misreading this?

davidw 17 Years · 2119 comments

DAalseth said:

IANAL so I don't know the ins and outs of these things.
But hasn't Wozniak been doing all sorts of tech educational things over the decades? Then how would this be infringement? Sounds more like one of many initiatives Wozniak has done.
The guy says his idea was for it to use Wozniak's name, but it's Wozniak's name. How can he sue Wozniak for infringing on the use of his own name? Woz should have the copyright on his own name.
Ok so there was an attempt to start this sort of thing, but it died ten years ago. Doing something similar a decade later infringes on a completely defunct and moribund idea how?
Sounds like if this guy really thought he had a case he should have sued Wozniak a decade ago for breach of contract. It just seems like he thinks that because the deal fell apart a decade ago he has first refusal rights on anything similar Wozniak ever does for the rest of his life.
Or am I misreading this?

The copyright yes, but not the trademark. Even if your real name is "Ronald McDonald", you could not open a diner and call it "McDonalds". Not even if all you serve was sushi.

To me, it sounds like this guy only got a contract that Woz would get paid (or compensated in some other way) for endorsing the institute that this guy was to set up. Woz was to have nothing to do with its set up. Kind of like how celebrities would lend their names to products they had nothing to do with, other than getting paid for endorsing it. If this guy never set up his "Woz School of Technology" then it's not on Woz, as his agreement only pertains to the use of his name and an endorsement.

Sound like this guy only suit would pertain to trademark infringement, providing he trademarked "Woz School of Technology". If not, then he's out of luck. And even if he did trademarked the name, it would be hard to prove that consumers would confuse "Woz U" with "Woz School of Technology", when no one ever heard of 'Woz School of Technology" because it never existed. Which to me, this was why he set up a mock website using that name. And then was told to take it down by Woz team. Most likely because he was not paying Woz for the use of his name.

In order to retain a trademark, one has to be using it or marketing a product or service with that trademark. This was how Cisco lost their trademark to "iPhone". Even though Apple and Cisco came to some sort of agreement over the trademark, Cisco probably knew they would not win, when they sued Apple for trademark infringement.

https://macdailynews.com/2007/01/12/experts_cisco_lost_rights_to_iphone_trademark_last_year/comment-page-2/

TheGadgetGuy said:

davidw said:

Even if your real name is "Ronald McDonald", you could not open a diner and call it "McDonalds". Not even if all you serve was sushi.

That’s incorrect.

You're right. One can not get copyright of one's name. I knew that much, but I wasn't thinking in line of a copyright for "Steve Wozniak" but that "Woz" could be copyrighted, as it's a name that nearly everyone associates with "Steve Wozniak". But evidently not.

But what most think as having "copyright" to ones name are probably thinking of the "Right of Publicity", that celebrities and well known people have, with some degrees, in most States. It's not a copyright of ones name or a trademark. But the "Right of Publicity" gives the celebrities and well know people the rights to control the usage of their name and images, even if they don't own a copyright or trademark to them.

https://rightofpublicity.com/brief-history-of-rop