Lawsuit Could Delay B&N Nook Release

Authorlink.com's headline and Andronica's image and title (on left) with story, duplicate a thought many had on hearing that Barnes and Noble had announced that there would be a delay of the release of the Nook due, they said, to a larger demand than expected.

  The earlier story on this detailed several meetings between B&N and Spring over the latter's "Alex" eReader which, as the photo shows, is so similar in concept to B&N's Nook.

  B&N stated that the first shipment of the Nook will be made at the end of November, but Authorlink reports that "A U.S. District Court has given Barnes & Noble until the day after Thanksgiving to respond to a lawsuit filed November 2 by Spring Design, Inc ... Barnes & Noble apparently received the Court summons November 6, which would make the response date November 26."

  Andronica writes that the court filings state:

' An injunction prohibiting B&N from further use or disclosure of trade secrets – in particular, to prevent any further sales of the Nook and/or any other products using Spring’s trade secrets – is necessary to provide Spring complete relief. '

And they link to court filing and supporting documents and describe the implications of that for the holiday season and longer-term if Spring Design is successful in even temporarily halting sales.

Brighthand is reporting that "Barnes & Noble stores are reportedly going to have demonstration units on the last day of this month, but no units to sell.  At this point, it's not clear if B&N stores will have more than demo units this year; all sales may have to happen on the Web.

  Those who would like to give the Nook as a Christmas present will apparently have to seriously consider buying it unseen, as devices pre-ordered next month might not ship until too late."

  Brighthand also describes the many attractive features of the device which could be experienced if it is ever available for review so that we can see the interface and how well it functions.  With the pluses (loaning, WiFi as an option, a good number of compatible devices, a microSD slot), it won't matter to many that it does not have the Kindle's (slow) cellular-network web-browsing capability.

  eWeek mentions that one of B&N's eReader contracts (Plastic Logic, in addition to iRex) "will aim its QUE e-reader at the SMB (small- to medium-sized business) and enterprise markets."

Authorlink adds:

' Spring Design first developed and began filing patents on its Alex e-book, an innovative dual screen, Android-based e-book back in 2006.  Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of Barnes and Noble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex.  Throughout, Barnes & Noble's marketing and technical executives extolled Alex's "innovative" features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook. [That was a day after Spring announced their 'Alex'...]

Alex, with its unique Duet Navigator™, provides the capability for interaction and navigation techniques of the two screens and furthermore utilizes the capabilities of Android to enhance the reader's experience by supporting interactive access to the Internet for references and links.  As the first in the market to offer an e-book with full Internet browsing while reading and with easy navigational control via its touch screen, Alex is well-positioned to offer the most dynamic and powerful reading device in the market.

It's amazing to me that Spring has not found a bookseller partner for this.