Barnes & Noble see moving into the tech industry as the next move for the company, but because, as a company rooted in the business of physical books, they lack

Barnes & Noble see moving into the tech industry as the next move for the company, but because, as a company rooted in the business of physical books, they lack a patent "moat" to protect themselves against other big tech companies. It will be difficult for B&N to produce anything but low margin commodity devices. Any differentiation from other devices will eventually drag B&N into a patent battle. Their (possibly) declining physical book business would make it hard to purchase a portfolio from a dying tech company. One day, here comes Microsoft demanding from B&N a license fee per device for some obvious patents. Since B&N is building a platform that sell high margin products (e-books), the license fee is likely to be affordable....at least until Amazon comes along with patents for a "online bookstore"... Yet... What a perfect opportunity to rack up a storm, raising awareness of the ridiculous patents owned by existing companies! It is in B&N's interest to devalue existing patent portfolios of their current and future competitors in the tech industry, and they are trying to do exactly that. Even if the plan fails and politicians are unmoved, future tech companies may think twice before threatening B&N with a patent lawsuit... B&N is actually going to bother to find all the pieces of prior art! We shouldn't be surprised a bookstore is fighting against software patents, because we know an existing technology company, with software patents valued at billions, are definitely not going to do it. It had to be a large company that could afford such a fight but the large company had to not have invested heavily into a technology business. Companies with no stake in a technology business would have no interest in demolishing software patents... unless it is moving into it. What companies making such a move? A company that is facing a fast declining market for its products.[1] Such a company can only be a bookstore. [2] [1] If it wasn't fast declining, they wouldn't be doing anything. Imagine putting a frog in a slow cooker, compared to putting a frog in boiling water. [2] It could have been a company in the music industry... but I think it might be too late for those guys. All they can do is try to hang on to what they've got.