Microsoft sues TomTom for alleged patent infringement
This post was updated at 2:34 p.m. to reflect TomTom's declining to comment.
It looks like TomTom will need to find the directions to the courthouse.
Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is filing two separate patent infringement actions against the GPS navigation company. In complaints before the U.S. District Court in Washington and the International Trade Commission, Microsoft is alleging infringement of eight patents.
Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez.
(Credit: Microsoft)In an interview, Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said that the software giant has been trying to start licensing talks with TomTom for more than a year.
"They basically never were prepared to have a discussion with us with respect to licensing terms," Gutierrez said.
A TomTom spokesman said, as a corporate policy, the company "does not comment on legal matters."
Although Microsoft has been on the receiving end of many patent complaints, this is only the third patent case Microsoft has taken to court. Last year it sued Taiwanese mouse maker Primax, before subsequently settling. It also had a dispute with Belkin back in 2006, which was eventually settled as well.
Microsoft already has deals with several other GPS system makers including Pioneer, Alpine, and Kenwood as part of its efforts to license its technology, a push that began back in 2003.
"All of these patents have been licensed before by many other companies," Gutierrez said. "We are asking TomTom to do what other companies have done and take a license."
The federal lawsuit (PDF) seeks damages for the past infringement, while the ITC case (PDF) is aimed at blocking future imports of infringing patents, Microsoft said.
"By filing both actions simultaneously we are seeking to both recoup past losses and stop continued infringing activity, which would thus minimize potential future losses," Microsoft said in a statement. ITC cases typically take about 15 months, Microsoft said, while federal patent suits can take much longer.
Of the eight patents involved, Gutierrez said that five relate to car navigation systems specifically, while the others have to do with file management technologies.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Then I'll think. Oh yeah, Apple should be worried that they have a competitor that has the better product.
These patents exist only because the US Patent Office fails to perform due diligence and determine the validity of patents before issuing a patent number.
And speaking of low stocks... Apple stock has fallen 100 points since May of 2008.
I would say this is true of ALL companies with patents they can use and falling stock levels. Just because Apple might do it too don't make the initial statement false!
In no way does prior art invalidate a patent. The only case where this is true is when some form of intellectual property is a defacto standard.
Three are related to the way TomTom uses Linux in their devices and the other five concern proprietary Microsoft software.
A PDF of the complaint is available at: http://media.techflash.com/documents/tomtomComplaint.pdf
I find it funny though that MSFT somehow managed to wrangle a patent on "Open Platform Architecture"... ***?
Also, prior art damned sure exists for the 2nd one (which was granted in 2006), which seems to describe nothing but a basic in-car GPS appliance.
...but get a load of these:
"Vehicle Computer System with Wireless Connectivity"
"Portable Computing Device-Integrated Appliance"
"Common NameSpace for Long and Short Filenames"
W.T.F. ?
Is Microsoft just begging to lose, or are they hoping that attrition will eke them out a settlement?
I really hate the patent system as it's built and administered. Companies are forced to take out patents on things that are exceedingly obvious because if you don't, some other company will and you'll end up paying them for it.
I'm surprised that TomTom uses Linux as the backend- or did. Most GPS's that I've messed with still use a very old version of WinCE.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons that Apple won't allow turn by turn directions on the iPhone? What sort of patents would they be running afoul of if they did it?
Back in the early ages of GPS, there was Magellan, Garmin.... and Microsoft. Yeah, they were there early on with Streets and Trips, being one of the first to offer vehicle turn by turn directions. It doesn't resemble the ease of use of today's offerings, but they were there back in the day.
I don't have to like it, but I do have to give MSFT credit for defending something that they do legitimately have the right to.
I'm guessing that won't happen.
No they don't. Trademark law is the only IP law where you have to defend your mark or loose it.
To bad the ITC doesn't have abide by these decisions, they stop imports even on obviously bad patents, allow complaining company to hold the others sales ransom and extort a settlement.
It is known that MS has patents on FAT32 stuff.
I think they license that to all the USB stick makers already.
In fact, I doubt any software patent could face scrutiny and survive.
"FAT32 is based on prior art and is obvious."
Well, according to some posts over at LWN, Microsoft's FAT patent was invalidated in 2004 and reinstated in 2006.
So much for " I doubt any software patent could face scrutiny and survive."...
The Linux angle is of course that the Linux kernel has a FAT32 driver.
"External storage manufacturers could argue that as their devices only store the data that they are not implementing the filesystem and so not violating the patent as these devices still require a licensed product to be usable."
Hmm, you don't seem to be in software development...
Anybody storing data on a device formatted with FAT32 obviously has to implement the filesystem functionality.
TomTom reads map data off FAT32-formatted SD drives. Not different than any other SD-drive reader.
Of course, a relatively straightforward way around that would be to use some other organization/filesystem. Ext2 comes to mind. There is an Ext2 filesystem driver for Windows, so it should not be too hard for a decent development team to get that package-ready for Windows. The short-filename-to-long-filename kludge on FAT32 is ugly as hell, anyway.
They don't do any due diligence, instead forcing the courts to do their job.
FAT32 is a sham patent. It basically boils down to an array of pointers.
While FATx may just be an array of pointers, the patent Microsoft has and alleges TomTom to infringe on is about mapping short filenames to long filenames. That's something that is very specific to FAT32, since it is a workaround for allowing more than the 8.3 filenames. Other filesystems (except CP/M, where MS got the basic idea from) don't use 8.3 filenames and obviously have no need for this kludgy mapping. Ok, there is one other filesystem that has something like that, the Rockridge extensions for CD-ROMs. But if I remember right, that works differently, with a hidden file containing the mapping for all files.
It is a bad joke.
- by jtjt145 February 26, 2009 1:37 PM PST
- MICRO$OFT THE LOWEST OF THE LOWEST!
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by JasonCe February 27, 2009 8:31 PM PST
- morons like you should be banned from commenting. ever.
- Like this
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- by t8 February 28, 2009 1:22 PM PST
- This is not a moronic comment because if enough people had this attitude, then the computing world would be more open, less expensive, and Microsoft would have to compete on the merits of each program they create rather than relying on illegal bundling of crap.
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(42 Comments)Shun them! Get rid them in your domain! Hurt them where ever you can!