Creators of Room Claim Facebook’s Rooms App is Copied from Their Chatroom App

It has been two days since Facebook has released new chatroom app called Rooms. Rooms allows users to create discussion boards on topic of their interest and invite other members using QR codes. Now after two days of Rooms being released, creators of another app named Room has claimed that Facebook has copied their app to develop Rooms.

Room was released by Room Inc. a few weeks ago in September and provides the same core functionality as Rooms. Users can create chatrooms and invite upto 500 members. There is no way to search for rooms. Same way, Facebook’s Rooms app also does not allow users to search for chatrooms and member can enter a chatroom on invitation only.

According to creators of Room, Facebook has copied their intellectual property. As stated on 9to5mac, Damien Rottemberg, Co-Founder and CTO of Room Inc. has sent over a statement on the situation:

We don’t know what happened, if something was leaked from VCs we were talking to that are very connected with Facebook, if it’s from high Facebook executives that we have on our Facebook friend’s list, friends of friends working at Facebook, or someone at Facebook that saw our app and thought it was cool enough to copy. We’re sure this is not a coincidence. We don’t understand how Facebook, with all their lawyers, could have released an app with the same name and features. We won’t let this happen and we want to defend all entrepreneurs with great ideas and great visions.

If reports are to be believed, Room Inc is planning for a legal battle with Facebook.

Now, we are not sure whether or not the accusations are true. There is no doubt that Room by Room Inc. and Rooms by Facebook provides almost same features. The idea behind both the app is same: To provide users a place to share things privately with members. We are not sure about calling it a “theft” as the idea to provide a platform of discussion on a common topic has existed since the 90’s.

Anyway, we will wait for Facebook’s word on this. What about you? Have you tried Room Inc.’s Room or Facebook’s Rooms? Which one is better? Share with us in comments.