As part of a separate lawsuit in which Barnes & Noble pre-emptively sued chipmaker LSI to mitigate against accusations that the Nook e-reader line infringed on the company’s patents, Judge Edward Chen of California’s Northern District denied LSI’s motions to dismiss 8 of BN’s defenses, including “non-infringement, invalidity, unenforceability, persecution history estoppel/judicial estoppel, no injunctive relief, license and failure to state a claim.” Chen said BN “had adequately pleaded factual allegations of misconduct by Lucent, LSI’s predecessor, which included failure to disclose rules of standard-setting organizations” and that the conduct could fall under the grounds of unforceability. “Indeed, a contrary […]
Legal
ITC Attorney Says BN Did Not Infringe On Microsoft Patents
The International Trade Commission trial in Microsoft’s patent infringement action against Barnes & Noble began in Washington on Monday, with BN scoring a prominent opinion in their favor. ITC attorney Jeffrey Hsu told Bloomberg that “he is recommending that ITC Judge Theodore Essex find there was no violation by Barnes & Noble of three Microsoft patents” in testimony given before evidence was presented at trial. Microsoft, however, believes Hsu’s opinion will be swayed once the trial is underway. The software company said in its original complaint that Amazon has licensed at least one of their patents for the Kindle. If the […]
eNews: Sesame Workshop eBooks From Random House; Piatkus’s Digital Romance Imprint; and More
Random House and Sesame Workshop launched a new digital publishing initiative this week with a number of ebooks focusing on early reading and readiness. Elmo Says Achoo! and Elmo’s Breakfast Bingo are the first titles on sale, with an additional 19 titles available this Spring. “With this program, Random House and Sesame Workshop are expanding our long-standing partnership of more than four decades and extending our shared commitment to children’s literacy and enriching children’s early learning experiences to a new platform,” vp, publisher Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo said in a statement. Release On Valentine’s Day Piatkus […]
Agency Lawsuit Is Expanded; Draws On Information from Amazon
On Friday, the lead law firm in the consolidated class action suits over the agency ebook pricing model Hagens Berman filed an expanded, revised and amended 86-page complaint and promptly issued a press release, as they did with their original filing last August. To understand the case you shouldn’t rely on that release, however, which misspells the name of defendant “Hachett Livre” and trumpets having “uncovered statements” in exotic places like the New Yorker, Steve Jobs’ biography and company blogs. The complaint itself follows the same reasoning as the original filing, basing their allegation of conspiracy on reasoning–that for any […]
People, Etc.
Laurie Chittenden has joined Hyperion an editor-at-large, where she will will focus on acquiring a mix of commercial nonfiction and fiction book projects. She spent the past five years at William Morrow as executive editor, and returns to the publishing house where she began her career in 1993. Steve Kasdin has joined Curtis Brown as director of digital strategy, to “supervise their e-book program” and help “coordinate their dealings with publishers and etailers.” Kasdin was at Amazon on the Kindle team before relocating back to the East Coast. Meanwhile, the Jean Naggar Literary Agency has posted an open invitation to […]
Supreme Court Upholds 1994 Law that Put Some Foreign Works Back Under Copyright
By a 6 to 2 vote, the Supreme Court upheld a 1994 law extending copyright protection in the US to works under copyright in other countries that are part of the Berne Convention, in the case Golan v. Holder. The challenge was brought by a group of orchestra conductors, musicians, and publishers who lost access to works that had been in the public domain and went back under copyright after the law was passed. The law in question “mainly applies to works first published abroad between 1923 and 1989.” Congress was essentially required by the World Trade Organization to amend […]