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B&N Responds To Microsoft's Android Suit
eldavojohn writes "You're probably familiar with Microsoft's long running assault on Android but, as noticed by Groklaw, Barnes and Noble has fired back saying, 'Microsoft has asserted patents that extend only to arbitrary, outmoded, or non-essential design features, but uses these patents to demand that every manufacturer of an Android-based mobile device take a license from Microsoft and pay exorbitant licensing fees or face protracted and expensive patent infringement litigation.' Barnes and Noble goes on to assert that Microsoft violates 'antitrust laws, threatens competition for mobile device operating systems and is further evidence of Microsoft's efforts to dominate and control Android and other open source operating systems.' The PDF of the filing from two days ago is rife with accusations including, 'Microsoft intends to utilize its patents to control the activities of and extract fees from the designers, developers, and manufacturers of devices, including tablets, eReaders, and other mobile devices, that employ the Android Operating System.' and 'Microsoft has falsely and without justification asserted that its patents somehow provide it with the right to prohibit device manufacturers from employing new versions of the Android Operating System, or third party software.' Barnes and Noble does not mince words when explaining Microsoft's FUD campaign to both the public and developers in its attempts to suppress Android. It's good to see PJ still digging through massive court briefs to bring us the details on IP court battles."
We have over the years seen giants like even IBM carefully thread around Microsoft, pussyfooting while Microsoft uses a chainmail. Its very refreshing to see Barnes and Noble taking the leaf out of their mouth and speak out, saying what everyone already thinks but wouldnt dare say.
If this keeps up, the discovery phase could be very interesting. Imagine getting subpoenas out to Motorola, HTC, Samsung and the others being extorted for specifics about their collisions with Microsoft? I would imagine that being of enormous interest to the EU and the DOJ.
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In Microsofts case i imagine the problem lies more with their reputation than their product. WP7 is behind the times, lacks many basic functions people take for granted in a smartphone and are just a "me too" product.
But, their biggest problem is that people regard Microsoft as a backwards, boring and utterly crappy company unable to release good products. Anyone who ever used a Windows Mobile Phone shy away from WP7 like a beaten dog from a stick. Anyone who has used Windows more or less expect WP7 being about as interesting as Windows 7 or Vista. The brand Microsoft is tarnished to the point almost no marketing in the world can save it.
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The Irony of it is that MSFT tarnished their brand by excessive marketing, and pushing into area's they really couldn't support. Combined with bad management decisions, and stupid internal restrictions means that Windows as a whole suffered.
MSFT came out with a tablet edition of the OS in 2002, but 9 years later still don't have a tablet edition of any other software they deploy.
When apple developed the ipad, one of the first set of included apps was a slightly dumbed down, but functional copy of their software.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Unless whoever in legal wrote/checked out B&N's statement is a complete moron, I assume that that particular line is attached to the broader claim that Microsoft is using patents that are either invalid, overbroad, or irrelevant; but excessively expensive/time consuming to challenge, to do that.
As you say, patents are supposed to confer an exclusive right to the holder; but(given the seriously uneven quality of patents granted, and the substantial expense of litigation) the allegation that a company is using its patent portfolio to illegitimately assert exclusive control to which it is not entitled certainly seems to be well within the realm of plausible.
It will take slogging through each patent to know for sure; but the strange 'linux violates our patents, we just won't say exactly which ones' game that MS played for a number of years doesn't fill me with optimism concerning the sound foundation and good faith of their android-related claims...
What exactly does the european patent office have to do with a US patent suit?
Any relevant action by a foreign patent office must be promptly disclosed to the US PTO (37CFR 1.97, 1.98). In other words, it's required by law.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Given the extraordinary broadness and obviousness of the patents mentioned in the filing, It would appear that an extraordinary variety of software released in the past ~25 years, probably including Android, does violate them. It would also appear that none of them should have been granted.
'the “display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster,”' Wow. Feel the innovation...
> What exactly does the european patent office have to do with a US patent suit?
Do you actually believe that European witnesses shouldn't be allowed to testify in US court cases? Because that's approximately what you're saying. The EU patent office found what they believe was prior art and brought this to MS's attention. MS failed to address this in their US patent application.
Microsoft has listed 6 of the patents, but claims there are more. Microsoft revealed/introduced these 6 patents and claimed that there were more and they could shut down Android but wouldn't explain more without an NDA. B&N views patents as public record (well, because they are) and saw no need to sign an NDA to reveal the rest of the infringing patents. So, in this document, they are claiming Microsoft is being deliberately dishonest in attempt to extort money from companies.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
This parent needs to be modded up. I know that very few of us are surprised that Microsoft went SCO on this, but requiring an NDA to see which patents were violated just reeks of patent trolling. Last I checked, *we're supposed to know that patents exist and what they cover so we can avoid violating them!*
Of course, I'm sure that they also acted in good business faith and contacted the other parties about these patents to allow Google et. al. to fix and remove the offending code. I'm also completely convinced that the patents in question provide true innovation and are worth licensing.
Just another case of "Software patents gone wild." Remember American brethren, contact your congresspeople and tell them to go EU style in regards to software patents because our current system continues to prioritize litigation over innovation.
Are you kidding? I have a HTC Wizard phone (TI OMAP-850) which is full of cool stuff: IRDA, bluetooth, 3G/EDGE, WiFi, 1.2M camera, qwerty keyboard, etc.. I know these are not impressive specs right now but they were 4 or 5 years ago. If you asked me the question: -what can you do with it? I would answer NOTHING!
It was not good as phone, that is, the user interface was not designed for it. I was much much faster taking of my dumb phone out from my pocket and write a text message using t9 than to go through all the menus in windows mobile, launch the messaging program, slide the qwerty keyboard, wait for the screen to rotate and finally write the message. We can argue the hardware was slow, but the truth is that Microsoft made the BIG error of having the software and hardware division separated by a huge Berlin wall. I disassembled the firmware and ended up realizing that it was compiled for the previous generation of ARM CPU, the Wizard's CPU is a ARMv5 and windows mobile was built for generic ARMv4!!! They (HTC probably) could have made the software adequate for the hardware they were selling but they didn't care. Even Linux with a small desktop manager runs faster on my HTC Wizard than the original firmware!!
It was not good as a internet device, the integrated Internet Explorer was slow, and difficult to use with a pen, a real pain in the ass. I preferred to wait and see some article at home instead of accessing it "right away" through the phone using GPRS.
Activesync was a horrible thing, you cannot imagine how much contacts I lost during a sync. Syncing through exchange was also a nightmare, I can never forget this message: "there was a change in the server, all the data in your phone needs to be deleted and synced again". WTF???
The integrated windows media player was another design stupidity, believe it or not, I had to use VLC (a port of it) because windows media player wasted my battery in less then one hour.
It had an integrated "office" suite which, truth to be told, was completely useless - at least for me.
The only thing I found useful on that phone was using third party instant messaging programs which actually worked well (much better than msn messenger). Other thing that worked well was playing games which actually used the pen interface quite well.
The device at the time cost 600 euros, I paid less than half for it in a ebay bid. Still, I feel it was one of the biggest scams of my life, I just still keep it because it runs Linux and is useful for robotics applications. I hope you feel through my wording how pissed off I still am!
Windows phone 7 doesn't really seem to fit anywhere...
To the general public, the windows brand is associated with desktop and laptop computers...
I spoke to someone who is entirely non technical, who brought up a "windows phone" they had seen advertised on tv, and then stated they would never consider buying one because "why would i want windows on a phone?"
They believed that a windows phone would be plagued with malware and blue screens of death, basically bringing all the problems from the pc to their mobile. Now while this is an incorrect assumption, that's the assumption people make when they see the brand windows.
These same people are the ones keeping windows alive on the desktop, because they believe it is an inherent part of desktop computing and often either aren't aware of any alternatives existing at all, or are of the belief that linux is for geeks and macos is extremely expensive. For phones on the other hand, these people are already familiar with existing mobile platforms.
To people who have used earlier versions of windows mobile, the brand has often left a bad taste... Earlier versions were clunky and unreliable, and that's a major disincentive to try the current version... I know several people who had windows mobile 6.x devices, and all of them hated it and have since moved to other non microsoft phones.
To people who have decent knowledge of the smartphone market, windows phone 7 is woefully behind all the other offerings and not really worth considering at this point...
And to geeks, windows phone 7 isn't unix, isn't open, and is from a company known for making poor software.
Windows, the very name gives it away, is a desktop gui system... The interface is an extremely poor fit for use with anything other than a mouse and keyboard. The brand should really be kept where its appropriate because the name has negative connotations in any other field....
The xbox was fairly successful, largely because it disassociated itself from the windows brand...
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Patent protection is valid even if you are not the most qualified or successful at implementing your ideas. indeed that's the point.
Indeed that's true but...
They don't seem to be arguing that the patent was obvious and incorrectly awarded.
No, that's exactly some of the claims B&N is making, they cite prior art on numerous sections.
FTA
30. During the discussions, Microsoft also threatened Barnes & Noble with claims of infringement of the ’536 and ’853 patents which relate only to simulating mouse inputs using non-mouse devices. The ’853 patent misrepresented the state of the art at the time the patent was filed by stating that “a need exists for permitting a user to perform all operations of a mouse-type device using a stylus.” This, however, is demonstrably incorrect. The ’536 and ’853 patents were filed in November 2000. Long before that time, numerous systems had been developed that enabled computer users to simulate mouse behavior with touch input devices. For example, U.S. Patent No. 5,327,161 to Logan et al., entitled “System and Method for Emulating a Mouse Input Device with a Touchpad Input Device” (the “’161 patent”), was issued in 1994, years before the ’536 and ’853 patents were even filed.
They also use various other afirmative defenses including alledging anti-trust patent collusion with Nokia, and attempted extorsion through thinly veiled threats of litigation. Those past two parts I think are the really interesting part of this. If B&N succeeds at proving that part of the defense, the whole "sue Android out of our way" strategy MS is using will be shut down completely. The part you are refering to, that the patents were used improperly, is, from what I can tell, part of the evidence towards the bad faith negotiations they were making and adds to the anti-trust defense. But it's just a part of the anti-trust allegation and not the whole of it.
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