Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Spring Design Sues Barnes & Noble Over Nook IP

Posted by kdawson on from the first-out-the-gate dept.

bth writes to let us know that Barnes & Noble has been sued by a company called Spring Design, which alleges that the recently announced Nook e-book reader infringes its intellectual property. This isn't a patent troll kind of situation; rather, the claim is misappropriation of trade secrets. Spring Design claims that they have been developing a dual-screen, Android-based e-book reader since 2006, filing patents all the while; and that they showed pretty much everything to Barnes & Noble in the expectation of working together with them to bring their reader to market.

6 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I'm shocked! by mpapet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm shocked I tell you! Huge company with an armada of lawyers steals everything from a startup. Next thing you know the execs at B&N will be rewarded for their cleverness.

    It's never happened before.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
    1. Re:I'm shocked! by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just because it's happened before doesn't mean it shouldn't be newsworthy. These companies need to be exposed for what they are doing as much as possible just like governments should be.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    2. Re:I'm shocked! by avilliers · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm shocked I tell you! Huge company with an armada of lawyers steals everything from a startup. Next thing you know the execs at B&N will be rewarded for their cleverness.

      It's never happened before.

      Indeed.

      Also, never before in the history of corporate America, has a small company make a predictable copy of product and then sued a bigger competitor for it's equally predictable product. This is all thoroughly uncharted territory. ;)

      Absent a lot more information, there's really no way to figure if B&N is remotely guilty of anything at all. Talks about licensing do *not* prevent you from working on a similar product yourself; the practice is routine. If your internal project fails or is delayed, you want a backup--that doesn't commit you to buying or licensing before you've signed a deal. And Slashdot, of all places, should be sceptical of claims that a company "deserves" some space in the IP world just for itself because they thought about something similar.

  2. This is why we can't have nice things. by straponego · · Score: 4, Insightful


    This case actually may be as legitimate as they come. Seriously, if these guys had NDAs and B&N pulled a Microsoft on them, they have my sympathy-- though this was the obvious way to make a new e-reader, these days. Linux, and now Android linux, are the obvious choices for the OS on any consumer device these days. You'd have to be morons not to have seen that (for Linux, ~6 years ago-- sorry Palm, too late; for Android, basically on announcement).

    But in general, every new tech product or service that comes out in the US seems to be hit by lawsuits as soon as it appears it will be successful. At the very least this reduces competition and increases prices. It's also a huge boon to countries which don't give a rat's ass about IP (see China). We're killing ourselves. The US has become a terrible environment for innovation.

  3. What's patentable? by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK, we all want to support the underdog here. I know I do.

    But seriously, what new, patentable ideas, do you need in an eBook? Make a computer (covered by existing patents), give it an e-paper screen (existing patents) an input device (touch screen, keyboard, rollerball, touchpad - all existing patents), storage (existing patents), OS (existing patents) and some applications (most notably, an eBook reader - existing patents).

    I know people patent all kinds of obvious ideas, but I can't for the life of me see any novel ideas that need solving, cobbling together existing components into an eBook.

  4. Re:order of things... by david_thornley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's several possible scenarios here.

    Spring: We've got this neat thing you want to see. Sign this NDA!
    B&N: We're working on something similar, but we'd like to see yours to see if we can work together (signs)
    Spring: We've got a signed NDA that covers something you're going to be producing. See you in court, suckers!

    Spring: We've got this neat thing you want to see. Sign this NDA!
    B&N: We're working on something similar, and we'd like to see yours to see if we can work together, but since we've got a project going we won't sign the NDA.
    Spring: Well, okay. This is what we've got so far.
    B&N: Ha ha! Now we've got your secrets.
    Spring: That's our work that you're going to be using.
    B&N: So sue us!

    Spring: We've got this neat thing you want to see. Sign this NDA!
    B&N: We're working on something similar, but we'd like to see yours to see if we can work together (signs)
    Spring: Now that we've got the NDA, here's what we've got so far.
    B&N: Ha ha! Now we've got your secrets, and since we have this research project going we can lie about where we got our ideas!
    Spring: We'll sue!

    All of these are plausible; it's also possible that it's a genuine misunderstanding, and Spring had reason to think B&N took things that they'd actually come up with independently.

    I'm not blaming anybody without more information.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes