Spring Design denied injunction on sales of Barnes & Noble Nook

This shouldn't be seen as an indicator of future rulings, but Spring Design has been denied its injunction to halt Barnes & Noble from selling the Nook. According to court documents, there is "genuine dispute" over whether the Nook was derived by Spring Design's contributions or was independently developed prior -- in a nutshell, there's no way for the court, or anyone at this point, to know what's really going on here. The creator of Alex, who as we've previously chronicled had many behind-the-scenes meetings on developing the Android-assisted e-book reader before BN pulled out of the deal, can take solace in an expedited pre-trial process to accommodate for an earlier hearing date. So now the only thing stopping Barnes and Noble from selling Nook is... Barnes and Noble itself. Turns out that's a pretty formidable foe.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[xxxsam Posted Dec 2nd 2009 8:23AM]

@iPhoneMessenger Yeah. The Spring Design thing looked awful - not just ugly, but a big mess that would have been difficult to use and contained unnecessary features - and although there is clearly a similarity, it's only really in that both designs have a touchscreen plus an e-ink display. (The OS is maybe the same too but really, that doesn't matter a damn.)

That might be an idea that got stolen but it could just as easily be an idea that both companies (and probably other people) had independently, before B and N saw the Spring Design prototype.

Nook looks really good and I hope that legal restrictions from either party don't impair the chances of other touchscreen-plus-eink readers. Ideally, readers probably wouldn't need a separate touchscreen, but at the moment a small display seems like a nice compromise (and a lot better than a keyboard).

[Greg F Posted Dec 1st 2009 11:21PM]

*cough*

[Lectronsect Posted Dec 1st 2009 11:24PM]

@(Unverified) too many diseases going around...

[CJ100570 Posted Dec 1st 2009 11:43PM]

@(Unverified) I hope you covered your mouth!

[Sisyphus Posted Dec 1st 2009 11:28PM]

"nook."

nannynannybooboo

[Autumn23 Posted Dec 1st 2009 11:46PM]

It's just "nook". Lowercase, no "the".

[Nilay Patel Posted Dec 2nd 2009 12:09AM]

@Autumn23 Rule 1, my friend! http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/30/editorial-the-engadget-style-guide-reaches-a-milestone/

[Autumn23 Posted Dec 2nd 2009 12:38AM]

@Nilay Patel Thanks, I didn't know about that. I work for B&N, and they've been on our backs about properly butchering their product name.

[tr1p Posted Dec 2nd 2009 12:42AM]

I wonder if all these product names have Strunk and White rolling in their graves.

[scratchfury Posted Dec 2nd 2009 1:38AM]

@Nilay Patel What is the rule about switching between & and "and"?

[loupy Posted Dec 2nd 2009 9:52AM]

@Autumn23

I'll agree with the lowercase aspect of it (as e.e. cummings started the trend). However B&N does not control the rules of English grammar and a proper sentence for their or anyone's product would be:"I just purchased the nook" or "I just purchased an iPhone"

The fact that BN is trying to get people to say something along the lines of the moronic "I just purchased nook" is plain wrong!

[AoFSquall Posted Dec 2nd 2009 12:00AM]

Reminds me of the Nintendo/Sony split back in the SNES CD development. History knows who won that deal.

[John Doe Posted Dec 2nd 2009 1:24AM]

@AoFSquall Reading up on it I've determined Nintendo won. The accessory was NOT impressive.

[Leind Posted Dec 2nd 2009 7:26AM]

"Moreover, Plaintiff’s motion was heard on the day that Defendant launched its nook™ product, at which time Plaintiff did not have a commercial product available."

Lame. Since when does B&N have a commercial product available?

[YankeeBravo Posted Dec 2nd 2009 12:43PM]

Ross,

You're usually great with gadget news and whatnot, but you might want to leave legal analysis to others with the background for it as you've misinterpreted Judge Ware's order.

First, it kind of is a big deal that Spring's motion for the preliminary injunction was denied as it serves as an indication of the strength of Spring's case.

Judge Ware's job wasn't to adjudicate whether or not the nook was developed independently of Spring's information. Thus your "nutshell" summation is rather flawed.

I won't get in to all the criteria involved in determining whether it's appropriate for a preliminary injunction to issue, but suffice it to say a multi-pronged test is involved.

Judge Ware effectively looked at only one of those prongs (is the plaintiff likely to prevail at trial on the merits) and found that Spring's case didn't meet the standard required. Thus no analysis was needed of the remaining prongs involving public interest, balance of equities, etc.