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Who won Microsoft v. Barnes & Noble patent litigation?

Posted by BernardSwiss on · 9 comments
Reuters; By Alison Frankel 		Mail this story
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Thanks to Monday’s joint announcement of Microsoft’s $300 million investment in a new Barnes & Noble’s digital and college textbook subsidiary, we will never know who actually won the patent showdown between the software and bookselling giants. An administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission last week put off an initial determination in Microsoft’s patent infringement case against B&N, which was tried in February. Now that the two are partners in the e-book business, the patent litigation will end without a ruling on the merits from the ITC or from the U.S. district judge overseeing Microsoft’s parallel infringement suit in Seattle federal court.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about which side won the case.

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Comments (9)

Fettoosh ·
By MS not being able to assert their patents against some FOSS software made them very weak and pretty much invalid.

By B&N standing up to MS and forcing it to settle out of court for $300 millions is a good win for them. It will also set precedence for others, especially Google.

I wonder how the lawsuit against Motorola is going and what kind of impact this settlement will have on it.

BernardSwiss Story submitter ·
The Business.financial press seems (for the most part) to be buying into the spin that B&N acknowledged (and is paying) Microsoft's Linux/Android related patent license fees (a "royalty-bearing license" in the B&N statement).
gus3 ·
A lawsuit, settled and withdrawn, sets no precedent. The legal questions are still unanswered.
tracyanne ·
That suggest rather strongly, that Microsoft did not believe they could win.
Fettoosh ·
Quoting:sets no precedent. The legal questions are still unanswered.


I didn't say "legal Precedence" and it sure does set a precedence for others to stand up to MS and at least make a good amount of cash from MS for a similar deal.

Bob_Robertson ·
Indeed, TA, that payment looks to me like microsoft saying, "please don't go after our Andriod extortion racket".
Fettoosh ·
Quoting:The Business.financial press seems (for the most part) to be buying into the spin that B&N acknowledged (and is paying) Microsoft's ...


To me it seems more like The Business.financial press were bought to spin it ...

dinotrac ·
@gus3 --

There is more to the world than legal precedent. Truth be told, the most recent legal precedents suggest that software patents are on shaky ground in the US.

This is about the ability to blow up like a pufferfish and scare people into submission. Being forced to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars when you claim that others owe you? Not bad for whittling your threat down to size.
jdixon ·
> Being forced to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars when you claim that others owe you? Not bad for whittling your threat down to size.

Bingo. Microsoft's threats have been shown to be far less credible than was expected. This will only embolden others to stand up to them.

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