ITC Throws Out B&N Antitrust Claims Against MS

N!NJA writes with an excerpt from a post by Florian Mueller: "Barnes & Noble's primary line of defense against Microsoft's allegations of patent infringement by the bookseller's Android-based devices has collapsed in its entirety. An Administrative Law Judge at the ITC today granted a Microsoft motion to dismiss, even ahead of the evidentiary trial that will start next Monday (February 6), Barnes & Noble's 'patent misuse' defense against Microsoft. [...] Prior to the ALJ, the ITC staff — or more precisely, the Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII), which participates in many investigations as a third party representing the public interest — already supported Microsoft's motion all the way. The OUII basically concluded that even if all of what Barnes & Noble said about Microsoft's use of patents against Android was accurate, it would fall far short of the legal requirements for a patent misuse defense."

Another Reason to Use GPL Software vs Android

[LuxuryYacht]

Didn't people see this coming? Google chose Apache 2.0 for their reasons and goals for Android

http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html [android.com]

"We've simply decided that ASL2.0 is the right license for our goals."

The tablet bubble is already bursting but maybe bodhilinux or similar will be used for some future consumer applicances to avoid these probelms?
http://bodhilinux.com/ [bodhilinux.com]

Re:Florian Mueller?

[idontgno]

Litigation isn't like football. It is rarely suddenly over.

Witness the neverliving, undying horror which is SCO v. Novell [groklaw.net]. Still, there are moments that you can persuasively say "Ok, it's over", even if the vanquished is still struggling. Like:

20-Nov-2008: Final Judgment in favor of Novell, Inc., SCO Group and also against Novell, Inc., SCO Group. Case Closed. Magistrate Judge Brooke C. Wells no longer assigned to case. See Judgment for details. Signed by Judge Dale A. Kimball on 20-Nov-2008.

This particular setback* for B&N is pretty harsh, and I (though not a lawyer) don't know of any way to undo the damage.

Mueller has a tendency to go all "end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it" in his pronouncements, but the (accurate) retelling of this news is still interesting and useful (once you dig out the mere facts).

It would have been nice if Groklaw could have covered this development in and of itself, rather than as a pointless rebuttal to Mueller. Really, do we have to concede initiative to this guy? Can't we just report the facts and ignore him?

*Ok, maybe I play World of Warcraft too much, but I think I just read that in the voice of Kael'thas [wowwiki.com]. "Merely a setback", indeed.