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Spring Design Sues Barnes & Noble Over Nook IP
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.
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
This is unbelievable.... how can a Company as reputable as Barnes and Noble do something this heinous...
What next, a fledgling songwriter will have his lyrics "borrowed" by the next great rap star....
When in Rome, carry a big stick or a rabid Lawyer! :)
Gravity!... It's not just a good idea... It's the Law!
Alex, with its unique Duet Navigator, provides the capability for interaction and navigation techniques of the two screens and furthermore utilizes the capabilities of Android to enhance the reader's experience by supporting interactive access to the Internet for references and links. As the first in the market to offer an e-book with full Internet browsing while reading and with easy navigational control via its touch screen, Alex is well-positioned to offer the most dynamic and powerful reading device in the market.
This thing looks awesome. Good for Spring Design in protecting it's IP. One of my biggest complaints with the Kindle is Amazon's insistence that it be locked down and only do what Amazon wants it to do. The Alex uses Android and sounds like it's a sweet device that might be hackable and could be turned into a really really useful tool.
Here's hoping that Spring Design really are the good guys in this.
If they've been filling patents all this time, shouldn't that protect them?
Oh, right. This is in the U.S.A., where money equals justice.
Usually the patent system is abused by those patent foundry companies turn out patents as their 'business model' to later troll up the real companies that do the innovation. It's good to finally see a story where a legitimate company that is trying to innovate a real product, might finally be able to use their patents to get a foot hold against what would otherwise be an impossible battle against a huge company.
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
Perhaps you should have gotten a deal, then shown them all your secrets!
They most likely had NDAs set up.
I'm shocked... simply shocked that a large company would ever screw over a small player like this. God knows I can't think of anything like this happening before. Well, not for the last few minutes, at least.
That is all.
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.
Could this actually be the copyright law protecting the Inventors/Developers from a deep pocketed infringer? I'll reserve judgement, but if copyright law actually HELPS the people who put in the hard work.... wow.
Once they are patented, they aren't secret anymore. It looks like B&N might have been using those secrets to develop something, but I don't think the idea of a dual screen is all that revolutionary.. only slightly different format than some handheld games.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Other than the devices being almost identical in nature there are no similarities, no.
How does this not fall under the obvious clause? There are millions of these on shelves everywhere already.
So the nook is the kindle killer, while Spring is the BN killer. Makes sense to me.
So what good is a hook to a nook, if the nook makes cannot read the future.
They can not do a cookbook on a nook, since they just got the hook. (apologies).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Xerox PARC: So we invented this really handy user input device, want to see?
Apple: Sure!
Xerox: Promise you'll license it from us?
Apple: Of course!
Always always always get the NDA's and License Agreements signed before you show the goods off.
Man, I think I need to get glasses. I looked at the headline, saw that Spring Design was suing Barnes and Noble over Nookie, and thought that maybe I was in the wrong business.
that this is fishy?
Spring Design claimed that the two companies had meetings and other communications, reaching all the way to the executive level, on the subject of the product and collaboration.
Why would a company take its ideas to a corporate giant, discuss and disclose their plans, then both companies release a similar product? TFA says nothing about the two companies' plans falling apart and going their separate ways with Non-Disclosure agreements in hand. What went wrong? If Spring has a legal foot to stand on they'll rake them over the coals, legally. If the NDAs can't be produced and approved meeting minutes detailing a failed offering aren't shown, B&N could get away with this.
"Oh, they brought in this cool idea and said we could use it. No, we didn't sign anything saying we wouldn't... here is the video surveillance tape of their developers handing out copies of the software... we thought it was open source"
IANAL, but my understanding is that you have rights to an invention it it's either 1) patented, or 2) a trade secret. Not both - by definition, stuff that's patented isn't a secret anymore - you've published the design. The linked article doesn't say anything about trade secrets, just patents - it seems the mistake is in the summary.
B&N may have taken a look at the market, said "Android-based, two screens... they're everywhere! Fuck this NDA, it'll never stand." And they were probably right.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The word patent means open or visible. Honours in England are granted by "letters patent" which are sealed in an open, i.e. readable, form. The meaning carries through into law; something can be a trade secret or patented but not both.
So how their patents, which they shared with a) B&N and b) every literate person in the world, can be a secret is a mystery to me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
Since Spring (presumably) has patents on key elements, B&N is going to have to find a copy of the licensing agreement that hasn't been used for bird cage liners. NDAs wouldn't matter in this case, except to magnify the potential penalties by making the infringement willful.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Almost identical in nature? You mean because there is a eink screen over a color touch screen? They look nothing alike to me.
http://www.springdesign.com/resource/jsp/products/Products.jsp
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/
I think the screen size and button placement on the Alex looks fairly awkward. Adding an advanced but power-intensive feature that's usually turned off onto something that's more efficient but more limited is a pretty standard design approach. And until this gets some full investigation (journalistic or legalistic, either is fine) we're putting the cart before the horse in passing judgment. For all we know, Spring Design really is a troll-like company, whose idea of "working closely with B&N" is having a meeting once with the company who decided not to license their stuff. Who knows yet?
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
Good advice. Try nuking it from any closer and the fuckers will probably steal your bomb before you manage to drop it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hmm...maybe they're very similar because they're attempting to solve the same problem. If there is only one good way to do something given the constraints of the problem, why wouldn't you expect the products to be very similar even if independently developed?
*sigh* back to work...
Like an IBM laptop and a Dell? Like a BMW and a Mercedes? Like Bud light and Perrier?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The press release (not quoted by TFA) mentions an NDA:
http://egether.com/release/52/
But its not clear if it was sufficiently restrictive to prevent B&N From developing their own device.
There is probably nothing patentable in the Nook that B&A are not already licensing. The only unique thing about the Nook is two screens. My old Razr had that.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Nope. Any small laptop with an ebook reader got there first.
There's a huge difference between "patent-pending" and "we actually have an enforceable patent."
I love that the ad I got for this article on slashdot was for the B&N nook.
B&N may well have been careful to have "firewalled" off the team that evaluated each of the readers (no doubt there were many potential suppliers). In fact, it would be surprising if a large and experienced company didn't take reasonable precautions regarding NDAs.
The various potential suppliers may individually and/or collectively feel miffed that they weren't selected. If they have acquired (or are in the process of acquiring) various patents they may well get some of the action in any event.
Of course, perhaps the Spring guys are Trolls or the B&N folks Evil Giants. This will only become known if the case goes all the way to Trial which is relatively rare.
It's telling that Spring's press release uses more space extolling the virtues of its product than describing the situation behind the suit. It's also curious that the primary features it hypes "full Internet browsing while reading" and "interactive multi-media open Internet access", while the nook won't even have a Web browser. B&N basically says they might add one later, if the users want it. This is totally a wait and see situation, because right now it's not at all clear who the bad guy is.
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
The summary is a bit off. The Android preview SDK was first released in Nov. 2007. It would be hard for Spring to be working on an Android device for at least a year before the SDK was released. I didn't see anything about Android in the article.
It's so abusive it's actually sexy.
Das ist gut! C'est fantastique!
Hit me! hit me! hit me!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What was B&N thinking when they named a product the "nooky book reader"?
Have gnu, will travel.
... has been working with major book stores, newspapers and publishers over the last 2 years, sharing the vision and the capabilities of the dual screen device.
So I contact Spring Design rep and asked a simple question (this was about 1 hr before my T-Mobile G1 went bye bye for the evening). I asked "Did you have any contact with BN about your device prior to the release of the Nook?"
/. is should I post the PDF briefing on wikileak.org? There is nothing that says I cannot and it should be available via open records request to the court it was filed in (Northern District of California, San Jose Division). Only thing is it is marked copy and has a series of numbers on it that could linked to the version e-mailed to me. I do not want to hurt Spring Design's case, but I do want to get inform out there.
Woman explained she was not speaking on behalf of company, but when I pressed she said that the simple answer was "yes", but the best way to understand was to read to court filing. I was then able to get her to e-mail the court filing to me. Social engineering at it's finest.
It blew my mind it documents how Spring Design was contacted by Phil Baker (A strategy and development consultant for BN) back in February of this year after the Kindle 2 was released. Not hard to prove call or e-mail, it then includes NDA that was signed by BN prior to meeting with Spring Design, and that pretty much seals the deal, as it has non-compete and nondisclosure sections BN walked right over. Then outlines various meetings, conf calls, e-mails, power points, etc. that continued while Spring Design was led to believe BN would be partnering to use their device.
The really brazen part is it went as high as the CFO of BN and that as late aa 10/1/09 BN was meeting with Spring Design's CEO supposedly over partnering deal, but they still needed to know this and that about how ALEX device worked.
Better still is on a press call given my Willaim J Lynch at BN, Mr. Lynch who was given various Spring Design's concepts and information, actually refers to product screen benefits exactly as outlined by Spring Design to him. He says on the transcript of call that BN is releasing the first dual screen e-reader, yet e-mail sent by him and included as exhibit shows he was privy to Spring's Design product.
Then there is the helpful advice BN gave Spring Design where BN staff recommended Spring Design not talk to Amazon, because (as BN says) Amazon is the kind of company that is likely to steal Spring Design's proprietary information rather then form a partnership as BN was planning.
So my question to
Respect the Constitution
I can always rely on slashdot for commentary where something reasonable and somewhat intelligent-sounding:
What did they steal? Ideas? Give me a break. Does "An android based E-book reader" constitute a patent worthy idea? Actually, of course it does, and that's why I for one do not see the benefit in supporting such startups in cases like these.
Quickly transforms into something straight from the mind of a drooling mental patient:
Patents need to die. Completely.
Maybe progress could be made here, if every good idea was not countered with equal amounts of crazy extremism.
... and then they built the supercollider.
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