NEW YORK—Opternative has filed a suit against Warby Parker here, claiming that Warby Parker has stolen its online eye test.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, yesterday, demands a jury trial and asserts claims of “breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, specific performance, and in the alternative unjust enrichment against JAND, Inc. d/b/a Warby Parker.” The suit says previously signed non-disclosure agreements between the two companies were breached.

Chicago-based Opternative, which developed a system to provide self-administered vision tests, reviewed by an ophthalmologist, launched its eye test in July 2015, and has since expanded that online refraction service to multiple states.

The suit claims that Warby Parker had “solicited the disclosure of confidential and trade secret information from Opternative under false pretenses, using that information to assess the viability of the market and enter the business to Opternative’s detriment, including using Opternative’s disclosed confidential information and trade secrets to accelerate the development of its own competing online eye exam system.” Opternative states in its suit that in 2013, Opternative “connected with Warby Parker to discuss Opternative’s then in-development online refraction system and for potential partnership.”

To enable the discussions the companies entered into the first of three non-disclosure agreements. The exchange of information about testing and legal matters continued and in December 2015, the complaint says, Opternative provided access to Warby Parker to raw results of Opternative’s eye exam software and that Warby Parker “conducted over 60 tests using the testing environment.”

Warby Parker, the filing states, “filed an application for a patent pertaining to technology directed towards online eye examination systems, specifically a method of using a mobile camera, such as a smartphone camera, paired with a computer screen, for determining a user’s distance from the screen and guiding the user to a particular distance. That application for patent matured into U.S. Patent No. 9,532,709.” The suit claims Warby Parker “falsely ascribed the inventorship of the ‘709 patent to Warby Parker employees, even though it was conceived by Dr. Steven Lee of Opternative.”

Warby Parker launched its system and service for online eye tests under the “Prescription Check” name, as VMail reported on May 23, 2017. Opternative’s suit claims that the Warby Parker system “bears substantial similarities to Opternative’s online refraction system” and that the company “used and benefited from the proprietary…and confidential information provided by Opternative in the design and development” of their system.

The suit is requesting accountability and “damages suffered by Opternative as a consequence of Warby Parker’s misappropriation of Opternative’s trade secrets under the Federal Defend Trade Secrets act,” among other demands.

In reply to VMail’s query to Warby Parker, a spokesperson for the company provided the following statement. “The preposterous claims made by Opternative do not accurately reflect reality, and we’re prepared to take all necessary steps to defeat them. This is an unfortunate example of a company choosing to address competition with litigation instead of innovation.

“We started Warby Parker to radically transform the optical industry, and we’ve been interested in the emerging field of online vision tests for quite some time. Our goal is to offer the safest, most accurate, and most user-friendly telemedicine product, regardless of whether that product is built internally or externally. Over the years, we’ve looked at many potential solutions, including Opternative’s test. We gave Opternative the opportunity to demonstrate that its product could live up to the high standards of quality and service that customers have come to expect from Warby Parker. Ultimately, they failed to meet those standards, and we determined that the product and user experience were unfit for our customers. Opternative is now trying to correct those failures through meritless litigation.”

The statement continued, “We recently launched a home-grown online vision test called Prescription Check, which leverages our patented technology to provide an intuitive user experience. We independently developed Prescription Check and did not have access to or use any of Opternative’s technical information that could have benefitted the development of our app. At Warby Parker, we’ve built our business and reputation on innovation, best-in class service, and fair competition—and we’re looking forward to exposing that Opternative’s claims are not supported by the facts.”