New York: Microsoft Corp said it filed patent-infringement claims against Barnes & Noble Inc, seeking to block US imports of the Nook e-reader in the latest legal dispute over the Android operating system.
Microsoft said it filed complaints with the US International Trade Commission in Washington and in federal court in Seattle against Barnes & Noble and the Nook's manufacturers, Foxconn International Holdings Ltd and Inventec Co Ltd, after yearlong licensing talks failed.
The Nook uses Google Inc's Android operating system and is infringing patents "that are essential to the user experience," Microsoft said in a statement. Microsoft, which makes the rival Windows-based operating system, filed a complaint in October against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc over Android-based smartphones.
"The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for intellectual property and licensing, said in a statement.
Microsoft has created a patent-licensing programme just for Android device manufacturers, Gutierrez said. HTC Corp, which makes phones for both the Android and Windows systems, signed a licence with Microsoft last year. Amazon.com Inc, which makes the Kindle that competes with the Nook, signed a licence with Microsoft last year, Gutierrez said in an entry on the company's public policy blog.
"Their refusals to take licences leave us no choice but to bring legal action" against New York-based Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec, he said.
Shift to e-books
Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, declined to comment. The Nook is Barnes & Noble's best-selling product, and sales of the device last quarter drove the company's first increase in same-store sales since 2007. A colour version of the Nook that uses Android was released in October.
Barnes & Noble, the largest US bookstore chain, suspended its dividend last month to invest in its digital unit as more consumers shift to reading e-books. Shenzhen, southern China-based Foxconn is the world's biggest contract maker of mobile phones. Inventec, based in Taipei, also makes laptop computers.
In the civil suit, Microsoft claims infringement of five patents and seeks cash compensation and a court order blocking further use of the patented technology.
The five patents, issued between 1998 and 2005, cover a control window for display tabs that help users find information; get faster downloads of Web pages; and select text and annotate it without changing the underlying document, Microsoft said.
