Microsoft facing Android patent probe after Barnes & Noble complaint

By Tom Warren, on 10th Nov 11 10:31 am with 65 Comments

Microsoft is facing a potential investigation into its Android patent agreements following a complaint from Barnes & Noble.

Barnes & Noble has asked U.S. regulators to investigate Microsoft’s Android patent agreements. “Microsoft is embarking on a campaign of asserting trivial and outmoded patents against manufacturers of Android devices,” Barnes & Noble said in a letter to the U.S. Justice Department. “Microsoft is attempting to raise its rivals’ costs in order to drive out competition and to deter innovation in mobile devices.”

The complaint follows Microsoft’s legal action against Barnes & Noble earlier this year. The software giant filed legal actions in the International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington against Barnes & Noble, and its device manufacturers, Foxconn and Inventec, for patent infringement by their Android-based e-reader and tablet devices that are marketed under the Barnes & Noble brand. Microsoft is seeking to block imports of the Nook e-reader according to documents the company filed earlier this year. Microsoft says the patents cover a range of functionality embodied in Android devices that are key to the user experience. The software giant cites the following infringements:

  • Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs
  • Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster
  • Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content
  • Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection
  • Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

Microsoft confirmed the Barnes & Noble complaint in a statement issued to the Bloomberg news agency on Wednesday. “All modern operating systems include many patented technologies,” said a Microsoft spokesperson. “Microsoft has taken licenses to patents for Windows and we make our patents available on reasonable terms for other operating systems, like Android. We would be pleased to extend a license to Barnes & Noble.”

Microsoft is attempting to secure royalty payments from a variety of Android manufacturers. Microsoft has previously inked patent protection deals with HTC, Wistron, General Dynamics Itronix,Velocity Micro, Onkyo, Acer, Viewsonic, Quanta and Samsung. The deals reflect Microsoft’s efforts developing new products, according to the company. Microsoft is also chasing Motorola and Huawei for similar Android patent deals.

  • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

    Don’t forget HTC as well!

  • Anonymous

    Don’t ruin the patent party, B&N :( Microsoft is in full swing!

    • http://twitter.com/travelsko travelsko

      Microsoft has got monopoly

  • Your name

    “Microsoft is attempting to raise its rivals’ costs in order to drive out competition and to deter innovation in mobile devices.”

    I agree with B&N! Yo, Microsoft! Stop trying to raise your rivals’ costs!

    Just seek an injunction on the sales of all Android already. That way, your rivals can’t complain about cost, and they’ll get (have) to innovate instead.
    It’s not like you have to license your patents under FRAND. 

    • http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson

      Nonsense. MS are in the right here. Read my comment.

    • Skysinof

      Did you simply stop reading at “I agree with B&N”? Read his comment again.

    • Guest

      Seeking injunctions is Apple’s style, not MS’s. MS just says pay to play.

  • Anonymous

    Microsoft facing
    Android patent probe after Barnes & Noble complaint ?? Wrong title I guess. Nobody started the probe so far. B&N is seeking for a probe on Microsoft.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Nothing wrong with the title. In English, facing means you’re anticipating a certain action or event.

    • Tom

      The relevant definition is “to confront.”  You cannot confront a probe that does not yet exist.

      You can “face the future.”  But that’s subtly different, because something will always occur in the future for you to confront — that something is left entirely unspecified.  When you face something specific, then it must actually exist.

      The first sentence of the article inserts the word “potential.”  Yes, you can indeed face a “potential” investigation that does not yet exist.  But that also carries the connotation that the gears are turning to launch an investigaton.  In other words, the investigation must have a real threat of being carried out.

    • Guest

      So “Tom Warren facing death” would be a legitimate current headline?

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

       Yes, everyone is facing death. That’s an inevitable result of our being ;)

    • Guest

      @creamhackered:disqus 

      Obviously, that’s why I chose it. Nevertheless, it would clearly send an inaccurate message if run as a current headline.

    • http://twitter.com/travelsko travelsko

      Microsoft have failed with wp7. start suing:)

    • Guest

      “Unable to defend its actions, B&N whines to Justice in last ditch attempt to stave off losing MS lawsuit”

      There, fixed it for you.

  • http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson

    Nonsense.

    This whole B&N diatribe is contrived and fundamentally flawed.

    This is a shameful exercise in speculative lawsuiting, and I can sense the dark corporate hand of Google’s in these proceedings. B&N have done their sums and are hoping they just might be able to save some money. It’s a gamble. It’s a punt. It’s a strategic attack against Microsoft and its patent portfolio and long history of investment in innovation and acquisition.

    Firstly, the royalties charged by Microsoft are blatantly reasonable. This blows half of B&N’s argument clean out of the water.

    Secondly, Microsoft is clearly doing nothing wrong here. B&N will have to create a pretty convoluted case and find a pretty sympathetic court to get away with this outrage.

    Patent legislation is in need of reform (and Microsoft is a leading voice calling for reform), but there’s no problem in this case. Microsoft invested in and owns the intellectual property, and they are entitled to protect it. They could refuse to permit the technology being used altogether!

    B&N should focus on getting their business where it needs to be. I remember when B&N and Amazon looked similar — and now look. Amazon has managed it without suing Microsoft. Either innovate yourself, or pay the going rate to those who did. I have no sympathy for free-loaders.

    This is the problem with so-called free or open technology. Remember, Oracle is currently suing Google over Android, too! Somebody has to make an investment. But there will always be people looking for a free ride.

    It’s essential that innovation and investment are protected and rewarded. If this principle is lost, it will literally impede the future progress of our whole species. Think about it.

    • Martyn Metalous

      And strangely MS has to pay royalties for patents themselves for their phone, why does B&N think they don’t?

    • Guest

      Not only their phone. They’ve paid them many times for technologies in Windows. In fact they just took out a license for OpenWave’s tech last week. B&N and Google just want a free ride.

    • http://sondreb.com SondreB

      Did we not progress as a species before patent laws?

    • OMG55

      Does matter, MS, Google, or Apple didn’t make patent laws legal. A branch of the government had to put their stamp of approval on it to put it into law.

    • Guest

      Patents laws are the law. Whether you agree with them or not is immaterial.

    • http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson

      @sondreb:disqus ”Did we not progress as a species before patent laws?”

      The rate of human progress now, especially in technology, makes previous generations look like they were standing still in comparison, and the protection and rewarding of innovation is an important factor in creating this environment.

      For 50,000 years, from the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in the fossil record until the Industrial Revolution,  our species has barely progressed at all. IN 5,000 BC most of us were still essentially neolithic people, and indeed there are still neolithic civilisations surviving to this day (indigenous North Americans, Australians, Alaskans, etc). Ancient civilisations like Rome and Greece were still using primitive technology.

    • Anonymous

      We can thank Bill Gates for singlehandedly advancing the human race!

    • http://sondreb.com SondreB

      You need to look at it with a broader perspective, go longer back. Then you will realize that the rate of progress has increased since the dawn of time. There is nothing special about the technological revolution (evolution), it’s the natural consequence of a development that has been going on for millions of years. Patent laws or not.

      Regarding Microsoft and B&N, they both have to play by the rules in the markets they operate and they are neither to be blamed for anything.

    • http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson

      @sondreb:disqus ”the rate of progress has increased since the dawn of time. There is nothing special about the technological revolution”

      That’s very, very wrong.

      In the past two hundred years, we’ve made more progress than we did in the last 50,000 years.

      From around In the 50,000 years before 1900 AD, or at least the Industrial Revolution, human technology changed very little.

    • Anonymous

      The answer is a clear NO. Why are you against protecting the IP of those who spent the brain cells coming up with it?

    • http://sondreb.com SondreB

      If we look at the question objectively, the rights would be forever and unlimited. Why should the author loose any rights (as they do today)?

      Anyone doing creative works, have the right to use that and keep that safe from others. If you want to share, make contracts. Is it fair that your neighbor should pay the state money so they can sue someone living on the other side of the planet if they violate a contract they did not sign?

      If you explain a good idea to your friend and don’t establish an agreement beforehand, why should he be allowed to utilize what you told him for his own benefit?

      Where would Apple and Microsoft have been today if they was not allowed to break a gazzilion of patents every day? Luckily most patents are NOT enforced by their creator.

    • Guest

      Yeah, I see the hand of Google in this too. They like using proxies. Like “selling” HTC some patents recently so that HTC could try and muddy the waters in the Apple lawsuit by counter-suing on some non-Android related technologies.

    • Guest

      Looks like MS agrees with you and I that Google has been helping B&N:

      http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/11/microsoft-asks-itc-to-compel-google-to.html

      My guess would be that some of that slide content was never provided to B&N since they refused to sign anything but a restricted NDA. So by producing it, MS knows it has to have come from another source. And that source is likely Google, either leaked to them by one of the other companies MS has targeted or directly via MMI’s involvement.

    • http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson

      I knew it! Thanks for the link.

  • Johnnyboy

    Samsung, HTC, and the others are huge companies with teams of legals experts.  They can decide to pay or fight the patent agreement with microsoft.  They decided to pay at the advice of their own attorneys.  BN has its own agenda.    If the complaint came from Samsung or HTC it would have more credibility.   As for driving out the competition, well that is not possible since google gives Android away for free and microsoft is only charging around $5/handset for the infringement.  That makes Android the cheapest OS option for manufactureres like Samsung.  BN is just quacking.

    • Tom

      Barnes and Noble’s market cap is only $823 milion, and yet they have $270 million in net debt and lost $74 million last year.  They’ve got only a few years left before they go bankrupt.  They literally have nothing to lose.

      I also suspect that they brought in a bunch of Linux zealots to rush out the Nook, and they’ve been pushing them to adopt this stance.  It’s like those Nokia engineers who are looking for other jobs because they didn’t want to work on a Microsoft OS.

      The other companies — Samsung, HTC, etc. — don’t really care one way or another.  Samsung has its own OSes, so they know how the patent game works.  HTC got its start on Microsoft Pocket PC and then saw Android take over — so they figure it’s worth it to remain friendly with the alternative supplier.

    • Anonymous

      Objective statement.

  • DavidPaul

    Wrong title! It shouts “marketing” for your blog post :)

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Pedro-Roque/100000194503830 Pedro Roque

      Come on, give Tom a break! Bloggers need all the traffic!

  • Presdent Baltar

    Not trying is dying but actually the law is on Microsoft’s side so B&N’s complaint is only a PR show amied to turn the view off of the whole Android licence-hoopla.
     
    Raising it’s rivals costs, wow. Really nice one. So paying the actual licencing fee is somehow wrong in their minds? There’s an easy way around that, stop using those patients. Of course that’ll raise the R&D costs and then Google can go and complaint to the JD that they must research and develop istead of just stealing others’ work.

    • Anonymous

      What about Apple buying up components in huge bulk? Isn’t that an anti-competitive practice?

    • Anonymous

      For one, it’s anti-competitive if the fair trade comission says so and for two, just the fact that a company buys resources is not de facto anti-competitive.

      For three, why brig Apple into this? If you use a technoology wich has a licence fee attached to it you MUST pay that fee, it’s not an optional thingie, it’s not beer money via paypal and no donation money. It’s the actual LAW. So if Google or the affected OEMs won’t pay the fee they’ll get lawyered for good.

      And i think theres no question here: Android is “free” on the end user devices because licence fees doesn’t get paid – wich of course is AGAINST THE LAW. So theres no “cost raising” – theres just the cost that did not get paid.

    • Guest

      No. But using their clout to purposefully over commit in order to create artificial shortages for competitors is. And that’s something they are renowned for doing.

    • Anonymous

      Do these patents fall under FRAND? But there could always be a case of how much a company is charging for patents depending upon the type of patent. Not all of them are treated equal. I am sure there are quite a few complicated regulations for this. 

  • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

    Well this shall be embarrassing for B&N.  If Microsoft wasn’t certain about the validity of their claims, then they wouldn’t be as aggressive with this as they are.

    • http://twitter.com/travelsko travelsko

      Microsoft sens blackmail to competeors

    • Guest

      Maybe your time would be better invested taking some English lessons?

    • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

      First of all, you don’t know that. Secondly, these companies aren’t their competitors. Most of them are existing partners.

  • Anonymous

    No OS is free, everyone has to pay up their patent fees, including Android. What makes B&N think that Android is an exception. Weirdos.

  • http://www.ratdiary.com spragued

    You should link to the announcement from the DOJ about an active investigation, if none then change the headline, which suggests an investigation is already underway. Thanks,

  • http://twitter.com/SCGreyWolf GreyWolf

    B&N is sad because they’re worried their hardware violates others’ patents and they’re broke.

  • Anonymous

    MSFT doesn’t have a monopoly in mobile device OS so their argument is ridiculous. By their logic no company would be able to profit from their IP if they did business with their IP. in this kind of world the only companies that could own and license IP would be lawfirms.

    • OMG55

      You’re ridiculous, that’s what inventor’s do, they patent their ideas so others can’t come along and put it to market first and then they receive no compensation for their hard work Example: the gentleman who created LCD TV’s later sued to receive royalties for his invention). Everyone knows that MS spends billions on research and creation of new technologies despite people saying they’re behind or late to the party. They simply don’t take an idea and rush it to market, this why Google got it out first. While I have used android devices as well as apple, I do beleive that if you are patient and thorough, when you finally put a product out, it will be great; WP7 is a great SO due to patience. It’s always easy for outsiders or a person who has nothing invest to say what someone should or shouldn’t do because you didn’t spend countless hours or billiions of dollars. Stay out of it and shutup!!!! Many of you see something great on the horizon for MS and you want the DOJ to mussle them like they have for the last decade. The question is, “Was MS really late to the party or were they handcuffed by the DOJ”?

    • Anonymous

      I think you’re missing my point. I agree MSFT has every right to collect money from whoever uses their IP regardless of their status in the pc industry. It is in fact their duty to their shareholders and under the law to defend their IP since they would otherwise lose it. BN’s argument is ridiculous because the anti-trust issues of the past had nothing to do with IP, but were instead related to leveraging its position in the desktop to drive its products (similar to how google leverages its position to drive their products). IP rights are a different ballgame and I think ultimate BN will fall flat on its face.

    • Guest

      “similar to how google leverages its position to drive their products”

      Which is where the real DOJ probe should be, because that’s exactly right.

  • Anonymous

    “innovation in mobile devices” PATHETIC. WP7 is already better than the crap android.

  • sallyhats

    Google is the real winner in all of this. They steal and create something they claim is original but its not. They cant be sued because they dont make money off of the actual OS, they give it away and claim its open source. But they make money off their market place and google search. They leave the suits on the manufacturers who actually make money off of Android. Google is the true definition of genius. Don’t spend on R&D, but cash in on all the benefits like you did.

    • Guest

      No they’re not. Their other OEMs are watching this and evaluating. You think a potential Andriod licensee isn’t saying to himself “Wow, do I want to end up like B&N?”. They’re also watching the MMI move and Google’s “promise” to not advantage them over regular partners (ahem cough). And Google is being suing directly over Android by Oracle.

  • Anonymous

    I blame Google for all this mess, they are dumping Android on the market and not being held accountable for it. Dumping is actually illegal in itself.
    What I find amazing is that in all of this, two of the main players, Microsoft and Apple, neither one is going after the other at all, because they both actually do the right thing and license from the other.
    It’s slime ball companies like Google and B&N that need to be fined and ultimately destroyed.
    “Do no evil” my ass!

  • OMG55

    Why isn’t any of these people mentioning Apple? Aren’t, “MS and Apple in be on these Android Patent Wars”. It is very obvious that there are a lot of jealous companies out there the want MS to fail in the mobil OS arena so they can maximize their profits by selling a product that was given to them for free.

    • Guest

      Because blaming MS always get a good reception and plays to the meme of sore loser because MS currently isn’t doing well in mobile. Whereas criticizing Apple will get you a legion of iTards flaming you and given iPhone’s success the “sore loser” meme doesn’t really stick. So people would then be encouraged to look at the actual issue with a more critical eye, which of course isn’t in Google or B&N’s interests.

  • http://twitter.com/starksimon Stark

    Waaaaaah! Waaaaaaaah!!! Looks like Google Virus is spreading fast.

  • Sirruss

    I wonder if B&N would be able to enlighten the courts, and the general public as well, as to where and when they (B&N) invested the resources to develop the technology and code they use in their device? If they can’t demonstrate that they themself developed the IP in contention, then maybe they could enlighten us as to who exactly developed that technology and is therefore due compensation. Far as I recall, B&N is a book retailer who has no history of investment in operating systems technology development. B&N is simply taking a page out of Google’s play book – steal someone else’s property, use it, then cry foul to the entire world when you are caught doing so. If these practices were by individuals, instead of corporations, these entities would rightly be in jail for robbery.

  • Anonymous

    the patents cited sound pretty weak. I’m sure there are more that aren’t mentioned. Android syncs with exchange and I’m sure MS has a patent on that. Either way, this is a civil case and if B&N think they are right, than defend yourself in court. Don’t ask the gov’t to do that for you. There were some very large companies that evaluated MS patent claims and chose to pay up. That tells me that MS has a legitimate claim.

  • phil jay

    I can’t hear that patent shit anymore… No one is right, it’s a whole failing law.

  • Anonymous

    It’s about time some company stood up to the bullies from Redmond.

    • Guest

      Did you already forget what your messiah had to say on the subject:

      “I will spend my last breath if necessary, and I spend every cent of the 40,000 billion that Apple has in the bank to right this wrong. I will destroy the Android because it is a stolen product. I am willing to pop up thermonuclear war over this, “Jobs said in the book.
      Thermonuclear war? Willing to spend every cent of $40 billion (now a lot more) to “destroy” Android? Who is the real bully, you hypocritical schizophrenic?

  • http://twitter.com/travelsko travelsko

    wp7 has faild start suing

    • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

      Well then call the ploice.