TomTom Contests Microsoft Patent Suit
Yesterday afternoon and this morning, reports did the rounds about Microsoft’s patent suit against satnav maker, TomTom. While the company said it was open to settling the suit with a licensing agreement, TomTom is contesting the suit.
Microsoft Corp. yesterday filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the GPS maker claiming the company’s products infringed on eight patents owned by Microsoft. Five of those in dispute relate to in-car navigation technologies, while the other three patents involve file-management techniques.
Microsoft Deputy General of Intellectual Property and Licensing, Horacio Gutierrez, said yesterday that the company has reached licensing agreements with other satnav vendors regarding the same patents, and maintained that the company is open to "quickly resolving" the TomTom dispute through licensing. However, Reuters this afternoon reports that the Dutch company denies infringing on any patents.
"We reject the claim and will vigorously defend ourselves," TomTom spokesman Taco Titulaer said, adding that Microsoft sent a letter to TomTom's U.S. office informing it of the action.
Microsoft said in an official statement yesterday that the company had been attempting to engage in licensing discussions with TomTom for more than a year.
Check out this morning’s story by clicking here.
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TOMTOM - Just pay for the license. Otherwise don't complain when users upload the most current maps to their unit without paying for it.
HAHA, you actually believe that TomTom should pay for a license for patents like "Methods and Arrangements for Interacting with Controllable Objects within a Graphical User Interface Environment Using Various Input Mechanisms". Any loss in this lawsuit would bring the portable flash drive industry to its knees, not to mention open-source projects like Samba.
The EFF and FSF needs to mobilize NOW!
Perhaps Microsoft has the patent on "method for user to input data to gain expected output," or something even better like "thought process involving button pushing." Perhaps a patent on "outline of thoughts on method for display of information in format relevant to expected outcome."
Give us a break people.
TOMTOM - Just pay for the license. Otherwise don't complain when users upload the most current maps to their unit without paying for it.
The most "funny" comment today. Did you really thought it out for at least a few seconds?
m$ is just trying to milk everyone with their BS patents instead to do some real work and innovate (+ m$ = oxymoron).
Most current maps information is gathered anyway on taxpayer money. What TT is doing is getting that public information, collate it, and encrypt it in their proprietary format, while requesting a big fee for that hard work.
Just cause your neighbor the hardware store owner pays the mafia protection money doesn't mean you have to pay money to "protect" your deli. Really, just cause Microsoft was able to bully other manufacturers into paying their "protection money" doesn't mean TomTom has to. This is why you can dispute patents.
Just cause Microsoft has patents doesn't mean the patent is valid or that TomTom is actually infringing on that patent. TomTom has no option but to defend themselves in court.
Where can we find out the patents in question for this trial?
You folks might be jumping the gun in saying these are not legit. Though if they resemble anything like what was stated above I will agree with you.
6,175,789; 7,054,745; 6,704,032; 7,117,286; 6,202,008; 5,579,517; 5,758,352; and 6,256,642 aka:
“Vehicle Computer System with Open Platform Architecture”
“Method and System For Generating Driving Directions”
“Methods and Arrangements for Interacting with Controllable
Objects within a Graphical User Interface Environment Using Various Input Mechanisms”
“Portable Computing Device-integrated Appliance”
“Vehicle Computer System with Wireless Internet Connectivity”
“Common Name Space for Long and Short Filenames”
“Common Name Space for Long and Short Filenames”
“Method and System for File System Management Using a Flash-
Erasable, Programmable, Read-only Memory”