It didn't seem long ago when Barnes & Noble was generating much hoopla following its launch party for the Nook eBook reader. But a recent lawsuit from another eBook maker could scuttle the debut of Barnes & Noble's fledgling Kindle rival.
Spring Design, the maker of the "Alex" eReader, alleges that Barnes & Noble "misappropriated trade secrets" and" violated the parties' non-disclosure agreement" by copying features of the Alex eBook into the Nook. The recent announcement of the Nook's features apparently caught Spring Design by surprise according to a statement that was e-mailed by the company.
In the statement, Spring Design states that the company has been meeting regularly with B&N executives since the beginning of 2009 to discuss the features, functionality and capabilities of the Android-powered Alex reader. Spring Design claims that B&N praised the Alex's features as "innovative" but never mentioned that they were using the very same features in the Nook. The dual-screen Alex has been in development since 2006.
"Spring Design unfortunately had to take the appropriate action to protect its intellectual property rights," said Eric Kmiec, Spring Design Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market."
Spring Design also indicated that it hopes to resolve the issue soon and move forward from the ordeal. The company has been aiming to work closely with book store partners as a way to market its device &mdash one reason it approached B&N in the first place.
Photo © Barnes & Noble
Comments
I can’t believe that barnes and nobel got seued because the original founder (or creator) thought that barnes and nobel copied the original eBook ….I think that barnes and nobel didn’t now about the original eBook ,and I think that the reason BaN made the sued eBook was because they wanted to attract thier customers so they can get money,because the economy ,it’s hard to get money these days ……. See you later
I wonder whatever became of this legal mess? Now that the Nook has ‘flopped’ I wonder if B&N has dropped their gripe?
I’ve been regularly checking the Web for updates on this and I haven’t heard anything new about it either way. I assume it’s still going on, but I’ll make sure to check with a Spring Design rep the next time I communicate with them.