4 ms·
does anyone know which patents they're asserting? FAT?
by leeoniya 13y ago
does anyone know which patents they're asserting? FAT?
- rbanffy 13y agoBarnes and Noble tried to make the list public. They got, IIRC, a billion dollars and a "partnership" (mostly the money) in exchange for shutting up. AFAIK, the list is still secret.
- leeoniya 13y agonow this is completely and utterly fucked up
- killme 13y agoWrong, here's the list. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-android.html?page=2 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...
- killme2 13y agoThat's not true and has turned into something of an urban legend with uninformed people repeating the claim. Here is the list http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-android.html?page=2 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...
- throwawaykf02 13y agoAlso, by my dangerously semi-informed understanding, B&N's defense looked really weak (see previous comment on same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540902). I'd still like a real attorney to weigh in on my opinion, though. So I really don't buy the "B&N scared Microsoft into bribing it" story. To me, it seems more like a "B&N tried a Hail Mary shot at getting an antitrust thing going against Microsoft, and when that failed miserably, they sold a cheap stake in their ebook business" story. Consider that ebook content is something Microsoft's ecosystem didn't (and still does not) have compared to Apple, Google and Amazon's ecosystems. Consider also that this ebook content comes without the lawsuits and publisher-wrangling the others had to go through. So, $300M for a quick entry into a market where its competitors are incumbents seems like Microsoft got a pretty decent deal, and I think that patent lawsuit provided leverage.