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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
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.
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
... 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