Microsoft is attacking Android with “trivial” patents

As you know, Microsoft lawyers are now actively working, signing up for licensing fees from all manufacturers of Android devices . Most companies agree to pay a few dollars from the device, just to not contact the legal machine MS. But some try to resist (in the diagram they are marked in red). One of the most persistent opponents with which the trial has been going on for a long time is the company Barnes & Nobles, which releases the Nook and Nook Color Android devices.

Some time ago, Barnes & Nobles filed a complaint (pdf) with the US Department of Justice regarding Microsoft's “anti-competitive” policy. This is a large package of documents, which describes in detail the tactics and methods of operation of the software giant. But the most interesting part was hidden in Appendix D (pdf) - it contains a list of completely trivial patents that Microsoft makes in support of its claims.

In the process of negotiations with Barnes & Nobles, Microsoft lawyers said that their company owns more than 60 thousand patents. However, directly for this case, they presented ten pieces.

• US Patent No. 5,778,372 (“Patent 372”) entitled “ Remotely Retrieving and Managing the Display of an Electronic Document with Embedded Images” (pictures in the browser), points 1 and 5 are against Nook and Nook Color
• US Patent No. 5,889,522 (“Patent 522”) entitled “Managing Child Windows in the System” (tabs in windows), paragraphs 1, 2 and 12 are against Nook Color
• U.S. Patent No. 6,891,551 (“Patent 551”) entitled “Selecting elements in the process of editing electronic documents” (click with the mouse or click on the touchscreen to select a text fragment, after which the highlighted fragment is highlighted), paragraphs 1-3, 5 and 7- 11 against Nook and Nook Color
• US Patent No. 6,957,233 (“Patent 233”) entitled “Method and Apparatus for Receiving and Rendering Annotations for Unchangeable Electronic Content”, paragraphs 21 and 22 are against Nook Color
• U.S. Patent No. 6,339,780 (“Patent 780”) entitled “Download Status in a Limited-Display Hypermedia Browser” (Normal Download Status, Scalable), paragraphs 1-6, 9-14, 17-26, and 29-42 against Nook
• US Patent No. 5,579,517 (“Patent 517”) entitled “Name System for Long and Short File Names”, paragraph 1 filed against the Nook
• U.S. Patent No. 5,652,913 ("Patent 913") entitled "System for providing intercommunication factors of I / O access in common data structures with shared file system and device driver", paragraph 23 against Nook
• U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352 (“Patent 352”) entitled “Name System for Long and Short File Names”, specific items not presented
• US Patent No. 6,791,536 (“Patent 536”) entitled “Gesture Simulation on a Control Device Using a Stylus and Getting Feedback”, paragraph 14 is against Nook
• U.S. Patent No. 6,897,853 (“Patent 853”) entitled “High-Level Active GUI Input Matrix”, paragraph 7 is against Nook

All these patents are considered by Barnes & Nobles to be "trivial, both in terms of commercial importance and in terms of suitability for patenting." Specialists of the company give a detailed commentary on each of the patents. For example, in the case of the “patent 372” for downloading images in a web browser, they remind of the existence of the Netscape Navigator 2.0b3 browser, where it was implemented (prior art). In the case of the “patent 522” on tabs in the operating system, they give an example of the OS / 2 2.0 programming manual, which describes such tabs. Annotations for electronic documents from the “patent 233” are described two years earlier (1997) in the Adobe Acrobat Software User’s Guide. And so on for other patents.

The company Barnes & Nobles regards the use of trivial patents for the requirement of licensing fees from all manufacturers of Android devices as ethical violation and unfair competition.
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via Groklaw