Android Attacked By Microsoft & Nokia’s Strategic Undermining Plan, Barnes & Noble Fights Back
The mobile patent wars continue to escalate and as Barnes & Noble is fighting back against Microsoft and Nokia, only this time, B&N are putting their foot on the ground in the name of the entire Android universe. The Book and Nook seller has responded to a patent infringement suit by Microsoft that aims to expose the tech giant for scheming to undermine the entire Android movement by pursuing infringement suits that are of an absurd nature.
In their official response (found on Groklaw.net), Barnes and Noble alleges that Microsoft and Nokia agreed upon a strategy to launch a coordinated offensive using their combined patent power that would dominate and control open source operating systems by demanding exorbitant licens fees and absurd licensing restrictions for what it asserts are “trivial, not infringed and invalid” lawsuits.
Microsoft re-responded with the following:
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.
If by “any other company” you mean “Nokia” and by “in our situation” you mean “royally screwed because we have created a sub-par product for a decade and now that other companies decide to innovate and succeed we are jealous, on the outside looking in, and only sold about twelve Kin Phones” then I agree.
But who knows what Microsoft considers “in our position”… maybe they consider their current 100,000 units/month a huge success. Note to Microsoft: Over a year ago, Android was activating more than that daily. Bitter much?
[Thanks Steve!]