Michael Arrington's TechCrunch on Thursday filed suit against Fusion Garage for what it considers to be "wrongful conduct" regarding the upcoming JooJoo tablet.

Michael Arrington's TechCrunch on Thursday filed suit against Fusion Garage for what it considers to be "wrongful conduct" regarding the upcoming JooJoo tablet.

Fusion Garage earlier this week. It was initially conceived as the CrunchPad, with backing from Arrington and TechCrunch, but Arrington says that Fusion Garage cut him out of the deal at the last minute. Fusion Garage says that Arrington did not deliver on his promises, so they proceeded without him.

"TechCrunch conceived, initiated, developed, directed, and promoted the CrunchPad project," according to the suit, which was filed in California district court. "Moreover, TechCrunch supported the CrunchPad project with expertise, talent, oversight, energy, cash, and concrete contributions to the hardware and software development."

TechCrunch contributed the design and oversight, the first two prototypes, payment to vendors, advice on solving technical problems, hosting Fusion Garage personnel, and lining up promotion, marketing, and distribution channels, the suit said.

Fusion Garage is accused of false advertising, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of business deals, fraud and deceit, and unlawful business practices.

TechCrunch wants the court to stop Fusion Garage from selling the JooJoo and to award it damages.

The CrunchPad idea dates back to July 2008, when Arrington wrote a blog post in which he asked readers to help him build a "dead simple Web tablet for $200." In a Monday webcast, Fusion Garage chief executive Chandra Rathakrishnan said he approached Arrington at his TechCrunch 50 conference that year and later met with him to show off the company's tablet prototype.

TechCrunch's suit says it developed its own CrunchPad prototype by August 30, but did not meet Rathakrishnan until the conference in September. Arrington points to a now-deleted blog post in which Rathakrishnan wrote that he was working with CrunchPad lead Louis Monier "in getting the software in shape for the hardware prototype B."

At that meeting, Fusion Garage showed off "nothing more than an off-the-shelf browser and some HTML," not a finished product, the suit says.

TechCrunch claims that the blog was deleted "to conceal from the public the true facts about the collaboration between TechCrunch" and Fusion Garage.

Arrington says that he worked with Fusion Garage over the next several months on a few CrunchPad prototypes. In June 2009, Rathakrishnan asked TechCrunch to make a payment to vendors, which TechCrunch did, the suit says.

Later that month, TechCrunch drafted a deal under which TechCrunch would acquire Fusion Garage in exchange for 35 percent of the merged company's stock. Arrington, however, did not believe the deal was solid and wrote to Rathakrishnan that "it looks like our position is to turn the project off completely." Rathakrishnan wrote back to say that he wanted to proceed on TechCrunch's terms, though no contracts were signed.

Fusion Garage then "missed key milestones in the development process," prompting TechCrunch to again threaten closing up shop on the CrunchPad. Rathakrishnan asked that TechCrunch not do that and flew himself and some of his staff to California to work on the project in advance of the Nov. 20 "Crunch Up" meeting.

In November, Rathakrishnan e-mailed Arrington to say that the deal was off and that Fusion Garage was proceeding without TechCrunch.

TechCrunch accuses Fusion Garage of having financial troubles and lying throughout the development process.

In a Friday blog post, Arrington wrote that "Fusion Garage's financial situation is a mess" and that they will not have enough money to defend themselves until after the company takes in cash from Friday pre-sales. "We believe it is irresponsible for press to link to the pre-sale site without disclosing this to readers," Arrington concluded.

Fusion Garage did not immediately respond to a request for comment.