Microsoft is very angry at Barnes & Noble and the manufacturers of its e-readers and, today, filed a series of lawsuits targeting Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International Holdings, and Inventec for manufacturing Android e-readers that apparently violate a bunch of patents.
As ZDNet reports, Microsoft filed lawsuits targeting these companies for manufacturing Android e-readers sold under Barnes & Noble’s nook brand.
Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 5,778,372 (the “372 patent”), U.S. Patent No. 6,339,780 (the “780 patent”), U.S. Patent No. 5,889,522 (the “522 patent”), U.S. Patent No. 6,891,551 (the “551 patent”), and U.S. Patent No. 6,957,233 (the “233 patent”) (collectively, the “Microsoft Patents”), which Defendants are infringing and/or inducing others to infringe by making, using, offering to sell, and/or selling in the United States, and/or importing into the United States, products or processes that practice one or more inventions claimed in the Microsoft Patents.
Microsoft backed up its lawsuit response by saying this:
The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft’s patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights. To facilitate that we have established an industry-wide patent licensing program for Android device manufacturers. Other vendors, including HTC, a market leader in Android smartphones, have taken a license under this program, and we have tried for over a year to reach licensing agreements with Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action.
Eventually this will reach a settlement. Any guesses on how much Microsoft will get from this?
