Legal documents have surfaced detailing a war of litigation between SnapChat founders Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown. The latter of the three fraternity brothers feels he is owed equity in the company for his contribution towards SnapChat. As it stands, he owns exactly nothing, and has had to stand by and watch while his friends make hundreds of millions of dollars, and purchase their first Ferraris.

During a deposition out of court, Brown recalled a conference call about Picaboo, the former name of Snapchat.

Brown emailed co-founder Evan Spiegel regarding his contribution to the SnapChat, and how that contribution qualifies him for a stake in the company.

According to SnapChat, Future Freshman became Picaboo, and that in turn became Snapchat. Murphy and Spiegel are arguing that because Brown did not have any shares in Future Freshman, he is not entitled to any equity in SnapChat.

But that’s not the crux of the matter, says Brown. While Spiegel and Murphy were coding the application, Brown was tasked with developing the concept of Snapchat. A text message Spiegel wrote to Brown read:

I want to make sure you feel like you are given credit for the idea of disappearing messages because it sounds like that means a lot to you.

Despite disappearing messages being one of the central features contributing to the success of SnapChat, Spiegel and Murphy feel that the development does not entitle Brown to a share of $800 million. Not only did Brown develop a central feature of the app, he also filed a patent application for it, in which he listed himself as an inventor of the application.

At that point, Brown asked for a stake in the company, and Spiegel told him that it was unlikely.

This conversation went down well before SnapChat received sizable payouts. The equity negotiations broke down when Spiegel and Murphy changed the passwords to shared development accounts, thereby removing Brown from any development role, and cutting contact with him.

[Source: ValleyWag]