Spring Design sues Barnes & Noble over the Nook

[idum]

The Alex device seems very interesting, indeed. What are the probabilities that it will be avalaible on the market until end of year 2009?

[PhishStyx]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Same exact thing happened to Gene Roddenberry. He pitched the Star Trek idea to CBS first. They picked his brains for several hours about how he could make something on such a small budget. He answered all their questions and they said no thanks and goodbye. They then came out with Lost In Space using many of the filming and set aspect that Roddenberry had told them he was going to use for Trek.

Roddenbury didn't sue them... he couldn't have. He just went on to product a World Wide phenomenon that has spanned 5 TV series and 10 movies.

BOb

Makes it all the more ironic that 20 years later, they turned around and did the same thing to Joe Straczynski, doesn't it.

(Sorry for not being on topic there.)

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Faenad

Now let's take bets :

who will purchase Spring Design first? Amazon or B&N?

It would actually be an interesting option for sony to do that, they have some experience of android due to their mobile phone division, it already supports the format they use and it means they avoid having to solve the problem of making a touchscreen without making everything blurry.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by pking36330

At some point the B&N corporate attorney will ask the question if it isn't just cheaper in the long run to buy out the Alex device, even it they can substantiate their claim. An injunctions HURTS a company every day it's in effect. Of course, if they do negotiate a settlement with Alex designs to make it version 2 or such, you know who will pay for the added cost of that settlement (can you say B&N customers; pbook and ebook).

There's also the question of whether the defendant, even if they are confident they don't actually infringe a patent, can afford to take the risk that the jury will get it wrong and find against them. Patent cases often involve deeply technical details, and in the US, at least, are tried by a non-technical jury which frequently doesn't have a chance of understanding the details.

The odds are very much stacked in favour of the plaintiff - they will typically sue for infringement of multiple claims, with a decision being required by the jury for each one. It often takes just one claim to be found in favour of the plaintiff to kill off a product (or company!), so if the jury doesn't really understand, and effectively tosses a coin for each claim, the chances of the defendant winning them all are minimal.

/JB

[pdurrant]

Again, this isn't a patent case. It's a breech of contract case.

For B&N to win, they just have to have convincing evidence that they were working on the nook with substantially the same features as it has now, BEFORE they signed the NDA.

Originally Posted by jbjb

There's also the question of whether the defendant, even if they are confident they don't actually infringe a patent, can afford to take the risk that the jury will get it wrong and find against them. Patent cases often involve deeply technical details, and in the US, at least, are tried by a non-technical jury which frequently doesn't have a chance of understanding the details.

The odds are very much stacked in favour of the plaintiff - they will typically sue for infringement of multiple claims, with a decision being required by the jury for each one. It often takes just one claim to be found in favour of the plaintiff to kill off a product (or company!), so if the jury doesn't really understand, and effectively tosses a coin for each claim, the chances of the defendant winning them all are minimal.

/JB

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Again, this isn't a patent case. It's a breech of contract case.

For B&N to win, they just have to have convincing evidence that they were working on the nook with substantially the same features as it has now, BEFORE they signed the NDA.

Understood.

I just get enormously irritated by the US patent system, and I lack the will power to resist any slight opportunity to rant about it.

/JB

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

For B&N to win, they just have to have convincing evidence that they were working on the nook with substantially the same features as it has now, BEFORE they signed the NDA.

An alternative defence springs to mind. If they could show that the nook development team were completely unaware of the discussions, and had no contact with anyone who'd seen the NDAed material, they be OK. But that's a much tougher challenge.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Again, this isn't a patent case.

It's amazing how many people keep thinking it is.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

An alternative defence springs to mind. If they could show that the nook development team were completely unaware of the discussions, and had no contact with anyone who'd seen the NDAed material, they be OK. But that's a much tougher challenge.

If the nook was developed by an outside firm, they might be able to show "clean room" conditions. B&N execs would have been pretty foolish to get into an NDA discussion with a potentially competing model otherwise. But if the design was in the hands of an outside firm, they might have been hedging their bets to talk with Spring as well. Maybe the design process had hit a snag at that point, or maybe the execs had heard that Spring was working on similar lines and wanted to check them out for a possible second version. Who knows?

Looks to me like the cleanest solution would be for B&N to buy or license the Alex from Spring and market it as nook++, and claim that had been their intent all along.

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Looks to me like the cleanest solution would be for B&N to buy or license the Alex from Spring and market it as nook++, and claim that had been their intent all along.

Well for one I think Alex is a flop if it ever come to see the light of day. Which I seriously doubt if ever will.
This thing is hideous function wise. If you already navigated to the information you wanted on a little (not so little) color screen why would you put it on top instead of reading it there? And if you reading some book on top why you need the quite big unused bottom? This thing is the best example of doing too many things and as a result becoming clunky and awkward. Nook, took good approach of top screen = main screen, bottom is just navigator.
The other way could've worked too I guess, but paying for two screens (money and weight) and using one?
No synergy between them.
That's why it might not be in the best interest of B&N to buy anything from them.

[JJoyce]

Originally Posted by nekokami

If the nook was developed by an outside firm, they might be able to show "clean room" conditions. B&N execs would have been pretty foolish to get into an NDA discussion with a potentially competing model otherwise. But if the design was in the hands of an outside firm, they might have been hedging their bets to talk with Spring as well. Maybe the design process had hit a snag at that point, or maybe the execs had heard that Spring was working on similar lines and wanted to check them out for a possible second version. Who knows?

Looks to me like the cleanest solution would be for B&N to buy or license the Alex from Spring and market it as nook++, and claim that had been their intent all along.

Older thread, I know, but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks since reading the filings via PACER.

The first thing to point out is that the nook was developed by an external firm, the Ammunition Design Group in California.

According to Ammunition, they were responsible for the product design, packaging design, strategy and interaction design/user interface design and development.

FYI, Ammunition handles other high profile accounts for Dell, Kohler, and (notably) Microsoft (they designed Microsoft's Carbon and Cobalt concept devices).

Given that the NDA was signed in mid/late February with presentations to senior executives taking place in May/June, there's no way. Even if Spring Design gave them everything they had in early March, I can't see a mid-size firm like Ammunition ramping up to deliver that quickly even if B&N was the only account they worked on for that time frame.


Given the people Spring Design were initially talking to came from B&N's partnership/business development side, I strongly suspect B&N was looking at the Alex for a deal similar to what they have in place with Plastic Logic's Que.

Spring Design jumped the gun (despite the clause in B&N's NDA cautioning that neither party should rely on any discussions as a promise of or a commitment to enter a business relationship) and thought they were about to hit the big-time.

Can't blame a small startup that had been marketing a concept for the last couple years for getting prematurely excited at the prospect of a big payout right around the corner, but.....The suit?

Unless Spring Design is holding back something extremely compelling, there's no merit to it. In addition to which, Spring's choice of the Northern District of California is an improper venue.

Bottom line, expect this to drag out for a while. Unless Spring Design has something more, there's no chance they're going to succeed in having an injunction issued, so....We'll see either a motion for summary judgment or possibly a payoff if B&N decides it's cheaper in the short-term to settle with Spring Design.