CoStar Accuses Rival of ‘Flagrant and Widespread’ IP Theft (1)

Commercial real estate information provider CoStar Group Inc. sued rival Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc. in Los Angeles federal court Friday, alleging CREXi’s business is based on copyrights and protected information stolen from CoStar.

According to CoStar’s complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, CREXi is building a similar platform using CoStar’s “billions of dollars of investments and the thirty-plus years of hard work by CoStar’s employees.”

CREXi allegedly uses passwords issued to other companies to access CoStar’s database and steal broker directories, property listing data, new listing alerts, and copyrighted photographs, among other things. ...