I'm still being screwed by someone, but he wasn't exactly a partner...he was a frequent customer who requested something custom.
June '06 he contacts me about something I had made for someone else. Wants me to do just that, so I did. During development, we had been tossing around certain spec ideas and we settled on a component he found (witthe help of other people and conversation) that was a bit different than the other components I use.
Made him his product, and word got out. He asked if I could make more, and I said sure, as long as he continued to select the one component. I boughthte parts, shipped them to him, he weeded through them and shipped them back. He got paid for his work...independant contractor or something, I suppose?
They were given a name, and became a phenomenal success.
Then, he wanted exclusive and sole distributorship. Which meant I'd have to wholesale every one to him...loosing the shirt off my back doing loads of work, and getting paid relatively little. I refused.
At the peak of it's popularity, he trademarked the product name about April of last year, and got a business license under that name at the same time without telling me. A coupe emonths afterwards, he send a
"proposal" informing me of the trademark and outlining his plans to take over the name, I'm to give him the products specs, and teach him how to make them...as well as my other products so he could act as "backup manufacturing"
I said "come back with a better offer" because we are the ones who did the work to make the name a success. Our labor, our money, our reputation on the line.
Then I got a
cease and desist
We replied with "No way, we're opposing" and filed for
opposition (includes the reply)
We recently got his reply to our opposition, which is full of lies, and are currently putting together a list of people with "relative information" - customers, people who know the history, etc...about 200 in all, several of them who are lawyers...
That's the gist of it...