An AFP dispatch on the 30th of March 2009 indicates that "the Dutch manufacturer of navigation systems TomTom and Microsoft have settled out of court their litigation for patent infringement. Under the terms of this five-year agreement, whose financial details were not disclosed, the number two worldwide GPS manufacturer will have to pay a sum to Microsoft for the right to use certain technologies. He also pledged to withdraw from its products, within two years, a feature called "File Management". On the other hand, "the agreement does not require any payment from Microsoft to TomTom", said the American group.". Read also the release from the Software Freedom Law Center Settled, But Not Over Yet [3].
In February 2009, Microsoft sued the TomTom GPS manufacturer for the infringement of eight patents. Five concerning car-navigation technologies and three about the Linux kernel. Microsoft sued TomTom in one of the Washington State's District Court and in the International Trade Commission (see the complaint in PDF format [4]. In response, TomTom filed a complaint in March 2009 against Microsoft for patent infringement. The complaint was filed on March 16th with the U.S. first instance court of Alexandria (Virginia, East side) and focuses on four patents.
The Microsoft approach is to use patent as a weapon for economic war against a competitor. The intent is not really to reach the end of the trial, but rather to constrain TomTom to sign a license agreement. This strategy isn't a new one. It aims to fight against or to get their hands on innovative players without using the sentence card, which can present the risk to see some patents invalidated.
There is also a commitment from Microsoft, by maintaining a system of cross-licensing, to increase the cost of Free Software. The economic war lead by Microsoft against the Free Software has several shapes, including propaganda, which has so far not worked. The legal weapon remains the main one.
However, it's a risky game because US courts are less likely to validate patents. They are moving towards a doctrine more favorable to innovation that allows new performers to impose themselves. Thereby, the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) now seems to estimate that we cannot consider as valid a patent whose innovation solely lies in the software. We can hope to see the same trend against software patents in Europe and that the European Office of Patent will stop to deliver anymore.
Press review:
- Frédéric Couchet, Executive Director, was interviewed by ZD Net about Microsoft complaint against TomTom. Read the paper: Microsoft and Free Software: relationships are still contentious [5].
- Alix Cazenave, Public Affairs Officer, was interviewed by 01 Net about the Microsoft complaint against TomTom. Read the paper: Microsoft plays a dangerous game with software patents [6].
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