Barnes & Noble's Nook: Beautiful but Plagiarized?

from PC Mag - Chloe Albanesius - November 3rd 2009

A California-based company filed suit Monday against Barnes and Noble, accusing the retailer of stealing its ideas and using them for the Nook e-reader.

Barnes and Noble copied features found in Spring Design's Alex e-reader and used them in its Nook e-reader, according to Spring Design. The company is accusing Barnes and Noble of misappropriating trade secrets and violating a non-disclosure agreement.

"We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes and Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market," Eric Kmiec, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Spring Design, said in a statement.

Barnes and Noble unveiled its e-book reader, the Nook, on October 21. The device, which will retail for $259, is expected to debut at the end of November. It has a color, touch-sensitive display for navigation, allows for wireless downloads via AT&T's 3G network or Wi-Fi, and runs a variation of the Android platform.

Spring Design claims that it first started filing patents for its Alex e-book reader in 2006. The device is a dual-screen, Android-based reader. It includes Internet browsing and a touch screen. According to a press release on the Spring Design Web site, it was announced on October 19.

Executives from Spring Design and Barnes and Noble had many meetings throughout 2009 and Barnes and Noble signed a non-disclosure agreement regarding the Alex e-reader, Spring Design said.

"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," according to Spring Design.

"It is our desire to resolve this matter so that we can move forward together to expand and grow this e-book market with enriched user experience, bringing readers to a new level of reading enjoyment," Kmiec said.

"As a matter of policy, we don't comment on litigation," a Barnes and Noble spokeswoman said in an e-mail.