B&N Countersues Microsoft, Cites Misuse of Patents On Windows 7 Mobile
Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Nook Color e-readers “do not infringe any valid claim” of patents cited by Microsoft in its March 21 patent infringement lawsuit (CED March 22 p10) against the company, Barnes & Noble said in a countersuit filed in United States District Court in Seattle this week. Microsoft’s allegations, which also named device suppliers Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn International Holdings and Inventec, “appear to center on the Nook’s and Nook Color’s use of the Android operating system,” although they “do not cover, claim, or disclose the Android operating system,” Barnes & Noble said.
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The five patents, which cover what Barnes & Noble called “insubstantial and trivial features,” are related to (1) the “display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster,” (2) superimposing download status on top of the downloading content, (3) “easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs”; (4) giving users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document; and (5) allowing users to “easily select text in a document and adjust that selection.”
In its countersuit, Barnes & Noble said the patents covered in the Microsoft lawsuit “don’t serve as a basis for customer demand for the products,” and that Microsoft “is misusing these patents as part of a scheme to try to eliminate or marginalize the competition” to the Windows Phone 7 mobile device operating system. It also said Microsoft’s suit “directly harms” competition for e-readers, smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile electronic devices and calls the suit’s claims “unenforceable.”
In the March 21 suit, Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft deputy general counsel for intellectual property & licensing, said the Android platform infringes several Microsoft patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices “must respect our intellectual property rights.” Microsoft established a patent licensing program for Android device manufacturers, and HTC, for one, has taken a license, he said. “We have tried for over a year to reach licensing agreements with Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec,” he said.
In response to the Barnes & Noble countersuit, a Microsoft spokeswoman told us: “Our lawsuits against Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec are founded upon their actions, and the issue is their infringement of our intellectual property rights. In seeking to protect our intellectual property, we are doing what any other company in our situation would do.”