Einstein's Notes is facing a lawsuit for allegedly selling notes from a UF professor's lectures without permission.
Faulkner Press, the software company used to supplement courses, filed the 63-page federal lawsuit on Tuesday against Einstein's Notes, a Gainesville business that sells class notes taken by student employees.
Jim Sullivan, a Gainesville attorney representing Faulkner Press in the city's U.S. district court, said note-takers hired by Einstein's have copied lecture notes from UF professor Michael Moulton without permission since 2007.
Moulton teaches Wildlife Issues in a Changing World and Biodiversity Conservation: Global Perspectives, a large lecture class that requires students to buy electronic textbooks printed by Faulkner.
The lawsuit also accuses Einstein's Notes of copying practice questions from Moulton's Web site and software published by Faulkner for student handouts.
Thomas Bean, owner of Einstein's, said he heard about the lawsuit when reporters called him Tuesday and could not comment on the complaint.
Bean said he comes to Gainesville once a month and handles much of his business by phone. He said he's currently on vacation with his family in the British Virgin Islands.
He has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit, Sullivan said.
"What can I do? I'm in the middle of the ocean," Bean said. "When I get back in the country, I can move on from there."
Sullivan said he issued a cease-and-desist letter to Bean in February, asking that printed materials used to prepare students for tests be removed.
Sullivan said Bean politely told him that Einstein's operations are legal.
But Sullivan said it's a misconception - one he has waited 12 years to clarify.
In 1996, UF filed a lawsuit against a similar company called A-Plus Notes, claiming the company infringed on professors' copyrights by publishing lecture notes.
UF lost the suit because the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that students' notes are not professors' intellectual property.
"Of course, we have studied that case very carefully, and we stand on their shoulders," Sullivan said. "We've been very careful to wait this long and wait for the right time and the right facts."
Bean said he insists that his services are legal as deemed by the court in 1996.
"The federal courts already ruled upon it," he said. "Like I said, we've been doing this for 16 years."
