Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
If the nook was developed by an outside firm, they might be able to show "clean room" conditions. B&N execs would have been pretty foolish to get into an NDA discussion with a potentially competing model otherwise. But if the design was in the hands of an outside firm, they might have been hedging their bets to talk with Spring as well. Maybe the design process had hit a snag at that point, or maybe the execs had heard that Spring was working on similar lines and wanted to check them out for a possible second version. Who knows?
Looks to me like the cleanest solution would be for B&N to buy or license the Alex from Spring and market it as nook++, and claim that had been their intent all along.  |
Older thread, I know, but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks since reading the filings via PACER.
The first thing to point out is that the nook was developed by an external firm, the Ammunition Design Group in California.
According to Ammunition, they were responsible for the product design, packaging design, strategy and interaction design/user interface design and development.
FYI, Ammunition handles other high profile accounts for Dell, Kohler, and (notably) Microsoft (they designed Microsoft's Carbon and Cobalt concept devices).
Given that the NDA was signed in mid/late February with presentations to senior executives taking place in May/June, there's no way. Even if Spring Design gave them everything they had in early March, I can't see a mid-size firm like Ammunition ramping up to deliver that quickly even if B&N was the only account they worked on for that time frame.
Given the people Spring Design were initially talking to came from B&N's partnership/business development side, I strongly suspect B&N was looking at the Alex for a deal similar to what they have in place with Plastic Logic's Que.
Spring Design jumped the gun (despite the clause in B&N's NDA cautioning that neither party should rely on any discussions as a promise of or a commitment to enter a business relationship) and thought they were about to hit the big-time.
Can't blame a small startup that had been marketing a concept for the last couple years for getting prematurely excited at the prospect of a big payout right around the corner, but.....The suit?
Unless Spring Design is holding back something extremely compelling, there's no merit to it. In addition to which, Spring's choice of the Northern District of California is an improper venue.
Bottom line, expect this to drag out for a while. Unless Spring Design has something more, there's no chance they're going to succeed in having an injunction issued, so....We'll see either a motion for summary judgment or possibly a payoff if B&N decides it's cheaper in the short-term to settle with Spring Design.