Updated at 3:30 p.m. PDT with additional detail and to correct the filing date for TomTom's suit, which was Monday.
TomTom has responded to Microsoft's patent suit by filing a patent claim of its own against the software maker.
The GPS device maker, based in The Netherlands, filed the countersuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday. TomTom says Microsoft's Streets and Trips products infringe on four patents it owns related to vehicle navigation software.
In a statement, Microsoft lawyer Horacio Gutierrez said the company is still in the process of reviewing TomTom's court filing.
"As has been the case for more than a year, we remain committed to a licensing solution, although we will continue to press ahead with the complaints we initiated in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the International Trade Commission."
Microsoft sued TomTom in late February, accusing the company of infringing on eight patents. The suit was notable because it included, for the first time in a court filing, Microsoft's long-asserted position that the Linux kernel infringes on Microsoft patents.
Microsoft plans this week to demo for the first time a Windows-based portable navigation system running a new custom version of Windows.
At a trade show in Hungary, the software maker is showing a system from Mio Technology that is running the Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 operating system that Microsoft announced back in June.
At the time, the software maker said it would have systems out in time for this year's holiday shopping season. However, Mio's press release said it is not planning to have its systems out until sometime next year. I'm checking to confirm that things have indeed fallen behind schedule.
"Our adoption of Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 is a significant step in our ongoing mission to create superior customer experiences on PND to consumer devices," Mio President Samuel Wang said in a statement. "Having a category-specific platform like Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 dramatically simplifies the process of building a connected GPS navigation device."
In addition to mapping, NavReady provides for features like Live Search, Bluetooth, and MSN Direct services for things like traffic, weather, and gas price info.
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