Trond Werner Hansen gives a talk at Mozilla in 2012 about design principles.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Browser maker Opera Software reportedly has sued former employee Trond Werner Hansen, alleging that he gave trade secrets to browser maker Mozilla, according to media reports Monday.
The Norwegian company seeks damages of 20 million kroner, or $3.4 million, according to a report by newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv, which said the suit was filed last summer. And The Next Web quoted Ole E. Tokvam, an attorney representing Opera, as saying, "Opera Software ASA is of the opinion that Hansen, after he left Opera, has acted contrary to his contractual and other legal obligations towards Opera, among other things, the duty of loyalty and his contractual and statutory confidentiality obligations."
According to the Norwegian paper, Hansen argued that he had browser ideas that Opera didn't pursue, and that he knows which ideas belonged to Opera and which were his own.
Hansen, who worked for Opera in the last decade and who more recently worked with Mozilla on product design, describes himself as an artist, songwriter, and designer.
Opera and Mozilla both have seen better days in the browser world. Opera has thrown its lot in with Google, adopting the search giant's Blink browser engine and scrapping its own Presto, in an attempt to stay more competitive. Mozilla, which helped reawaken Web development after Microsoft let it languish with Internet Explorer, now faces a serious challenge gaining a foothold in the mobile market.
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