Good News for Holliday Shoppers - Barnes & Noble Wins Injunction Fight
Technophiles (and their loved ones) can breathe a little easier, as Judge Ware of the Southern District of California won't be playing the part of the Grinch this year.
As we've discussed in prior posts (here, here, and in our "In the News..." posts), Barnes & Noble's hot new Nook e-reader, which has pretty much become the must-have gadget of the season (Barnes & Noble sold out their original inventory by late October, and has announced that it will be moving more product into "select stores" early next week), had also landed the bookseller in some legal hot water. On November 2, Spring Designs, a California technology company, sued Barnes & Noble. Spring Designs claimed that the Nook was developed from trade secrets relating to Spring's own "Alex" e-reader, which it had disclosed to Barnes & Noble under an NDA, and, not surprisingly, moved for a preliminary injunction.
Just yesterday, Judge Ware issued his order (which you can read in full by clicking on the link) on the motion. Judge Ware ruled that, based on the evidence before him, there was "a genuine dispute over whether the nook(TM) was derived from information disclosed by Plaintiff to Defendant or was the product of earlier independent development by Defendant." On that basis, he found that Spring Designs had not established a likelihood of success on the merits. He also noted that, because the motion was heard while Barnes & Noble's product had already been launched while Spring Designs had not yet released its own e-reader, the requested injunction would "alter the status quo, not preserve it."
As such, he denied the injunction. Which is good news since, if anyone was wondering, I'd love a Nook for Chanukah.