TomTom Sues Microsoft For Patent Infringement

CWmike writes "GPS device maker TomTom has shot back at Microsoft with a claim of patent infringement, after the software giant raised concerns in the Linux community with a recent lawsuit against TomTom. In a suit filed earlier this week, TomTom alleges that Microsoft infringes on four patents in mapping software Microsoft Streets and Trips. TomTom is asking for triple damages for willful infringement, since it says it had notified Microsoft about its alleged infringement. Microsoft said it was reviewing TomTom's filing and that it remains committed to a licensing solution and has been for more than a year."

Comments

Re:Total War?

[morgan_greywolf]

Not likely.

Seriously. TomTom is a much smaller company than Microsoft. It isn't likely that they would launch a patent strike against Microsoft (unless their CEO happens to be Darl McBride ;), a company with a much bigger portfolio and more cash. As a comparison, according to TomTom's 2007 annual report, at that time, they had ~$2 billion in assets world wide. Microsoft has ~$20 billion just in cash.

Re:Virtual Earth?

[morgan_greywolf]

MS Virtual Earth has been around since the 1990's.

So has TomTom.

Re:It is 2009. The binary is no longer the product

[Zero__Kelvin]

You missed the point, which is that attacking TomTom for using Linux kernel code is attacking Linux kernel code. Their claim is that they are not doing so, when they are in fact clearly doing so.

HTH ;-)

Re:Although ...

[gbjbaanb]

Even though Microsoft streets used to ship with win95, way before TomTom existed,

someone else who thinks that SatNav is a 21st century invention.

From http://investors.tomtom.com/overview.cfm?Language=1

"TomTom was founded by Harold Goddijn, Peter-Frans Pauwels and Pieter Geelen in 1991"

That'll be 4 years before Win95.

Re:MAD

[mikael]

In the past 10 years, the most notable patent lawsuits were:

SCO vs. Linux - After hundreds of millions of dollars were blown away in lawyers legal fees, the judge rules that Linux didn't infringe on SCO's intellectual property. Best site for news here is Groklaw

3Dfx vs. Nvidia - 3dfx lost and merged into Nvidia

Rambus vs. Hynix vs Micron Technology vs. Infineon Technologies vs. Siemens AG. vs. Samsung

Rambus seemed to be suing just about everyone, and everyone else was countersuing Rambus and each other. Legal letters seem to be flying around like chairs in a Saturday night bar fight.

Hynix to pay Rambus $379 million in patent dispute

A complete list of legal updates provided by Rambus

Micron vs. Rambus

Although it does seem better to settle all patent disputes with cross-licensing as soon as possible, rather than slogging it out into bankruptcy

Rambus and Infineon settle patent dispute