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B&N Pummels Microsoft Patent Claims With Prior Art

Posted by Soulskill on from the beware-the-wrath-of-patent-attornies dept.

itwbennett writes "As Slashdot readers will recall, Barnes & Noble is being particularly noisy about the patents Microsoft is leveraging against the Nook. Now the bookseller has filed a supplemental notice of prior art that contains a 43-page list of examples it believes counters Microsoft's claim that Nook violates five of Microsoft's patents. 'The list of prior art for the five patents that Microsoft claims the Nook infringes is very much a walk down memory lane,' says Brian Proffitt. 'The first group of prior art evidence presented by Barnes & Noble for U.S. Patent No. 5,778,372 alone lists 172 pieces of prior art' and 'made reference to a lot of technology and people from the early days of the public Internet... like Mosaic, the NCSA, and (I kid you not) the Arena web browser. The list was like old home week for the early World Wide Web.'"

8 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. First post! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Funny

    This post is prior art to everything else in this discussion!

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:First post! by Gideon+Wells · · Score: 1, Funny

      I wish I could go back in time and patent, copyright and trademark the concept of "First Post!".

      Of course it would be useless here. The volume on /. would triple just out of spite that such a thing was patented in protest.

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      by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
    2. Re:First post! by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why worry about prior art? Just patent it and then sue posters who can't afford to fight your lawyers.

  2. With news from opera by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

    With news from opera that they have duplicated the faster than light neutrinos does that mean that future art is now as valid a defense as prior art?

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    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  3. Re:Follow up should be by certain+death · · Score: 4, Funny

    Correction - MS and Apple both PAY CHINESE to produce actual products. There, fixed that for ya.

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    "My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
  4. Re:Why did everyone else pay? by strength_of_10_men · · Score: 5, Funny

    Screw the patents! Where can I get a crackhead chihuahua with a Gattling gun?!

  5. Re:Why did everyone else pay? by geekoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    "It's not like the CEO is personally attending to every mundane court case out there."
    true, but they should.
    We would see a lot fewer of these cases.
    If corporations are people, and they are accusing me of a crime, don't I have the right to see my accuser? so really, the majority shareholder should have to be there as well.

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    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  6. Re:Follow up should be by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think Steve was so genuinely butthurt over the Android backstab by Schmidt that's it's personal; not professional.

    I'm glad he was finally able to get over it.

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    Have you got your LWN subscription yet?