Spring Design vs. Barnes & Noble: all the nooks and crannies
By Nilay Patel 
posted Nov 3rd 2009 6:35PM
posted Nov 3rd 2009 6:35PM
Here's where it gets tricky, though -- the NDA contains pretty standard language specifically allowing both B&N and Spring Design to walk away from each other and develop competing products, so long as they don't use any of the confidential information they learned under NDA. Without knowing exactly what Spring Design showed to B&N and how much of that influenced or is included in the Nook (which Barnes & Noble currently won't let anyone touch), we can't say much about how this one's going to play out, but for right now we're looking at a huge corporation bringing out an Android-based ebook reader with dual electronic paper and touchscreen LCD displays just months after being shown the same concept by a three-year-old startup, and that's not exactly a warm and fuzzy bedtime story. We'll see what happens next -- Barnes & Noble, you have anything to say?
Hm... no popcorn here... pita chips will have to do.
Try nachos
http://www.google.com
B&N should have gone with Alex. At least it has a capital letter....
nOok...
From reading part of that agreement, section 6 sounds pretty damning. Pretty much says that Barnes & Noble can't do exactly what they seem to have done. We'll have to see if they have evidence showing that they were planning nook(or the ideas behind it related to those behind Alex) prior to this meeting. If they started coming up with it after the meeting, then they sound pretty screwed.
@ Mark
One possibility is that B&N had already been developing the nook, and when it saw Spring's device, it decided to go with its own device. I haven't read the agreement, but if its like every other NDA on the planet, I'm sure it has a clause that allows B&N to use any technology it already had possession of before being showed Spring's confidential stuff.
Like everything, there is probably much more to this than it seems from the PR press releases of each company.
I'm getting a Nook.
Screw you Spring Design.
yeah, screw independent development. woo corporations!
Ya let the larger companies stomp of the little ones. Forget fair business practices or the need to adhere to the legal power of a confidentiality agreement.
And often have better products due to the fact that they have way too much money. I'll stick with my better designed, over priced product.
Besides, I like the Nook a lot better than what Spring Design's wanted to do.
LOL, yeah you go ahead and get that Nook. We'll be laughing in a few months when Spring wins an injunction and the B&N ebook shop is taken offline.
"Ya let the larger companies stomp of the little ones. "
How do we know that is what's happening here? Isn't it equally likely that B&N didn't like what it say in Spring's reader and decided to go another direction. Just because B&N is the bigger company doesn't mean that it is automatically in the wrong (I mean it's not Apple... I kid, I kid).
It's raining lawsuits...
Hallelujah?
AMEN
consumers just watch and LOL
I see...
Uh huh
Interesting...
You see it too? Hmmm....
I think I would get the one from Barnes and Nobles, since there is a big corporation behind it to support you, and there are probably more books.
Dirty deeds....
DONE DIRT CHEAP!
Done with sheep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCRE9qOgbug
Spring Design is just jealous because B&N totally pwned them when it came to the design of the Nook. The "thing" that is designed by S.D. looks ugly and stupid. I think I know which one I'm going to choose, cough *nook* cough
Before you say that, hit up YouTube and see the Alex in action. It absolutely crushes the Nook. You can browse the web on the Android display, find a page that you want to read, press a button and it appears on the e-ink display. KILLER APP if i've ever seen one.
It says 3G coverage, what's wrong with... Oooopps sorry, wrong Lawsuit.
I'm so used to seeing frivolous law suits among tech companies, it's strange to see one that might actually be legitimate. Ironically if Spring Designs wins, they will probably end up getting a bigger payoff than they ever would have gotten by selling their design to B&N upfront. Sometimes it pays to get screwed over.
Earth to Spring Design: nobody cares. you suck.
Next step:
Amazon buys spring design, provides backing for major suit against B&N.
Amazon / spring wins, nook disappears.
The NDA notes a date of 2/12/2009.
Nook launched 8 mos later.
I don't know that I buy that B&N took the ideas from Spring Design, got their design, hardware specs, partnerships, software dev, testing, and manufacturing all wrapped up and ready for launch in 8 mos.
If they did...that's pretty hardcore.
I don't disagree with you, but I'd just note that the Nook is far from ready to launch. BN wouldn't even let us hold working samples at the launch, much less use them, and none of the videos I've seen look like final software at all -- the interface is super laggy.
Fully agree. B&N have a finished, production ready system. Spring has a prototype. B&N definitely had this in the works prior to 2/12/2009...
--Bill
I was thinking the same thing. The Nook was most likely in development for at least a year before it hit the market. I bet much of the design was in place before meeting with Spring Design.
Agree. If BN actually saw all the key Nook ideas in Spring's reference design for the first time, then spooled up their own beta-quality implementation of this design between late Feb and October, they deserve a prize for fastest custom Android development.
If you work in tech, you meet potential partners all the time, and an NDA is part of the scenery. Almost every conceivable software and hardware idea has been implemented in slideware or reference designs, and if you're working on v1 products, as the BN Nook team is/was, you'll run into potential partners that have 'independently' conceived product concepts similar to your own, or other members of the ecosystem, on a surprisingly regular basis. There is no practical defense against concepts seeping into the marketplace of ideas, and an NDA is an instrument to try to prevent this leakage.
IMO it's an unavoidable reality that sometimes seriously flawed potential partners will strike first upon decent ideas. If you're working to figure how how to best bring a product to market and you've been exposed to a cool concept from a lame vendor, what's the best course of action? Pursue any approach other than the one the lame vendor suggested?
The more common scenario, and is what I suspect played out with BN and SD is that BN had already mostly settled on a plan for Nook, and met with SD late/after the sourcing part of the product cycle, and realized 'they've got the same idea that we're already working on'. At that point the best approach, or at least the approach that multiple litigation attorneys I've worked with always suggest, is to immediately cease further discussion to avoid taint. If this is what played out, the only mistake one could argue BN made was in evaluating design proposals after a direction was already set.
Loophole! They spelled "Company" wrong in the address. So, the "entity identified above" isn't "Cmpany".
And the cmpany is listed as "Springs Design", which also does not seem to be the right organization.
B&N are showing incredible naivity, stupidity or greed. While Spring Designs were careful to protect themselves and act with honor, B&N have behaved in a manner that shows them to be clueless about IP law, most probably because this is their first hardware venture.
Assuming B&N have sinned then here is not only to Spring Designs prevailing but the public should boycott B&N until justice is done.
"Assuming B&N have sinned then here is not only to Spring Designs prevailing but the public should boycott B&N until justice is done. "
That's a pretty BIG assumption. As pointed out in some posts above, it is also likely that B&N was developing the nook before it ever met with Spring, and just decided it didn't like what Spring showed them and would rather use what it had already started with. There is nothing wrong with that.
Spring has a HUGE hill to climb up to win its case. First, it has to prove that the nook has the same tech as what it first showed B&N... Second, it has to prove that B&N didn't already have knowledge of that tech (perhaps from another developer) prior to meeting with Spring... Third, Spring has to prove that B&N actually stole the idea and implemented it instead of developing it separately. I'm guessing it can't do it.
I wouldn't expect this to stop the nook from selling. I expect that Spring Design to ask for damages for Barnes and Noble's breach of the contract which allows them to get all the profits they could have expected from selling their e-Reader without doing the investments required to research and mass produce consumer ready versions. Spring design ends up with all the money they could have expected without the costs and Barnes and Noble gets screwed over for breaching the contract. The only thing Spring Design doesn't get is the good will they might get by getting their name out there to be recognized by folks who want to buy their product.
First, it would only get the profits it would have earned... and profits are revenues minus costs, so Spring wouldn't get anything more than it would have gotten before.
Second, you are assuming that B&N breached the contract. That's what the whole lawsuit is about... so you're basically assuming a result that hasn't been proven. It is equally likely that B&N had already been developing the nook when Spring met with them and decided against using Spring's technology for whatever reason. If that's the case, B&N didn't breach anything, no matter how similar the nook is to Spring's tech.
Another reason why I've always preferred Borders to B&N
B & N are crooks. Over the years they have gone out of there way to destroy small independent bookstores. I'm not at all surprised by them stealing a product concept.
Saying Barnes and Noble "stole" Spring's design is like saying Spring stole their design from a Nintendo DS. Yeah, they all have two screens but the similarities end there. The Nook and the Alex use their touch screens for totally different tasks.
The "actual NDA" has a typo in the first line and says "CMPANY" instead of "COMPANY"?
sounds like ford and the intermittent windshield wiper they stole.....
Seems pretty dirty.
I'll wait for Sony's next round of eReaders.
I love the NYPL lending.
Whether or not Spring Designs prevails, it's nice to see a company file a lawsuit BEFORE the competing, possibly infringing product ships. Too often we see intellectual property disputes being raised years after the allegedly infringing product is on the market.
That said, where's SD's request for a preliminary injunction against B&N's release of the nook?
A preliminary injunction is unlikely. Trade secret cases, or "theft of idea" cases are much harder to prove then other types of IP cases (because you not only have to prove that the same tech is being used, but also that the defendant didn't develop the technology idependently or acquire it from another source). Liklihood of success is a big factor in whether a preliminary injunction is awarded, and since the liklihood of success is much lower, a preliminary injunction is much less likely.
Thanx for the valuable information. it's strange to see one that might actually be legitimate. Ironically if Spring Designs wins, they will probably end up getting a bigger payoff than they ever would have gotten by selling their design to B&N upfront. keep posting. Will be visiting back soon.
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That the NDA is dated 8 months or so prior and presumably disclosure began sometime after that may not be important at all.
What really matters, even if B&N already had some plans of a similar product design before seeing SD's information, is whether B&N used that information in contravention to the NDA. (and if SD can prove it, perhaps by getting depositions from B&N employees or obtaining emails that might discuss how B&N used this information). That's pretty much it all else being equal.
OTH, if B&N had independently come up with the same information prior to disclosure, then the NDA excludes that information from the scope of protection (or if the information falls under the other exclusions e.g. public knowledge). question is, can that assertion be backed up by evidence to meet the standard of proof.
in reality, some business guys are in such a hurry to exchange information that they probably started talking before the NDA was actually signed...
From what I've gathered from some people I know that work at B&N, they've been developing the nook for over 4 years, they have NDA's with a bunch of their employees to not discuss it up until the announced release.
I personally would be highly shocked that they stole this idea and had it developed, tested and mass produced to have the nook ready to ship out by the end of this month.
I've worked for startups before, they're biggest goal is to have a quick viable product (which has rarely happened at the places I've worked) or to be bought out by a bigger fish. I want to support the smaller business but I've come to realize that the smaller business is just like the bigger business, the only difference is what they offer and the cash that backs them.
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