TomTom pays Microsoft and settles patent-infringement dispute
Summary: Microsoft and TomTom have settled the patent-infringement suits (and countersuits) between the two vendors, Microsoft announced March 30. Microsoft is not paing TomTom, but TomTom is paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount as part of the deal.
Microsoft and TomTom have settled the patent-infringement suits (and countersuits) between the two vendors, Microsoft announced March 30.
Microsoft is not paing TomTom, but TomTom is paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount as part of the deal.
Here is Microsoft's official statement:
"The cases have been settled through a patent agreement under which TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage under the eight car navigation and file management systems patents in the Microsoft case. Also as part of the agreement, Microsoft receives coverage under the four patents included in the TomTom countersuit. The agreement, which has a five-year term, does not require any payment by Microsoft to TomTom. It covers both past and future U.S. sales of the relevant products. The specific financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed."
There has been much speculation that TomTom was unwilling to license at least four of Microsoft's patents because of incompatibility of those licenses with GNU General Public License terms. But TomTom officials have declined to discuss the case publicly in any way over the past month, so no one knew for sure.
Microsoft's statement specifically mentions that TomTom is taking pains not to violate the GPL version 2 terms via the new licensing arrangement forged between the two companies> TomTom is removing from its products the functionality that seemingly infringed on Microsoft's file-allocation table (FAT) patents:
"The agreement includes patent coverage for Microsoft’s three file management systems patents provided in a manner that is fully compliant with TomTom’s obligations under the General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). TomTom will remove from its products the functionality related to two file management system patents (the “FAT LFN patents”), which enables efficient naming, organizing, storing and accessing of file data. TomTom will remove this functionality within two years, and the agreement provides for coverage directly to TomTom’s end customers under these patents during that time."
Bottom line: TomTom -- unlike some other companies developing around Linux which have signed patent-licensing deals with Microsoft -- isn't licensing Microsoft's FAT as part of this agreement.
What's your take? Is the settlement good or bad for Linux vendors who might be in Microsoft's sights?
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Talkback
paying is misspelled
Tank goodnes yuo notised it
nor can you spell MIS-SPELT
hmmmm
FYI
Pedantic X 2
MS pays Tom Tom to pay MS.
You Are Surely Safe
"Thou Shalt Not..."
You're a muppet!
When pointing at someone/thing, remember there are 3 fingers pointing back.
well,
The average person posting a comment doesn't have to live up to the standards of a proffesional.
Ken.
Proffessional Standards
I was only pointing it out so she could fix it,
RE: TomTom pays Microsoft and settles patent-infringement dispute
Only way out
Good for TomTom. Barring the (very expensive and risky) determination that those filesystem patents are invalid per [i]Bilski[/i], this is the only legal way to go.
[i]What?s your take? Is the settlement good or bad for Linux vendors who might be in Microsoft?s sights?[/i]
It sets a great example: stick to keeping your existing obligations while complying with the law. Sure beats the approach Novell tried.
Bottom line: They admitted guilt to illegally using MS patent.
No, TomTom only agreed to a cross licensing deal, and the amount paid by
That is what Novell did too
Microsoft with the same conditions.
Microsoft has developed technologies that they have patented. You can
either make the system that sucks right now - semi-workable or you can
try to rage against the machine and accomplish nothing in the process.
I hate the idea that many of these patens are for the 'bloody obvious' or
slight variations on an existing idea - but the US government has show
little effort to fix the problem, so the industry will have to find a way to
address it.
Donnie....what you previously called.....
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10535-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=62363&messageID=1149503
<br>
Sure is odd that with it being an obvious patent, with prior art and the patent having run out, the DUH factor belongs to Tom Tom for admitting guilt and paying up then, huh?
true: not an admission, but a deal
it has not enough money to pay and had to
defend 8 cases when only opposing 4. Going with
the deal does not mean that there was an
infringement.
Anyway, for the TOMTOL device, the LFN support
is completely non essential.
What is only needed is the support for FAT,
because the list of files with long file names
can be crated by a separate hidden file
containing the mapping between the long file
name (compatible with Unix) and the short
filename in its FAT volume (note that this
technic has been used for long on Linux/Unix
and MacOS to support LFN on CDROMs, before the
adoption of the Joliet extension to ISO 9660;
Microsoft used a simialr trick to support Mac
volumes with resource forks on FAT volumes,
using a special hidden directories).
The difference of performance is insignificant
here because the TOMTOM device uses solid-state
storage, so its builtin GUI interface can be
rebuilt to display the name from this; as well,
its driver for PCs can also automatically
handle the mapping and update the LFN mapping
file without using the tweaks of storing LFNsin
the FAT directory (using additonal entries with
an invalid attribute byte to use the other
bytes in the fixed entry).
The problem will be that the new TOMTOM device
could become incompatible and won't be able to
load properly the SDCards formatted in FAT
format by digital cameras or mobile phones and
that use a LFN extension to allow giving
meaningfule names to these images (so you'll
get photos named only like "IMG00001.JPG"...
Is it really a big deal? If the TOMTOM device
needs LFN support for something else, what it
can do is to use another filesystem, or use the
FAT without LFN but with the mapping file.
However it is still possible that the problem
is not there but in the FAT32 extension of FAT:
without it, FAT only supports 65000 clusters
and this limits the usable data space if no
partitio is used. Is at least the FAT32
extension supported without breaking a patent?
If so, FAT is a dead filesystem for TOMTOM,
that should go with something else: the ISO9660
and UFS are alternatives.
But now that TOMTOM accepts to surrender, why
did it accept to pay without getting anything
in return? Paying, plus givingits own patents
for free to Microsoft is excessive. Microsoft
is now profitting from another smaller company.
Can Google come to the rescue to TOMTOM?
If not, it will disapear very soon : TOMTOM is
already the most costly navigation system, but
it is not alone now, and there are plenty of
competitors, most of them licencing Windows
Mobile from Microsoft. And all of them are
buying their cartography data from the same few
sources, and there's nothing very specific to
their hardware.
The only specific thing is the navigation
software's GUI, made for usability, but I think
that MIO is better than TOMTOM for its user
interface, and also offers a more precise
satellite tracking and a faster recovery. All
what TOM TOM can do to resist is to extend its
devices with other functions: integrate radio,
photo album, music reader, connection of 4G
networks, mobile internet access, connection
with the mobile phone, interface with car
controls, integrate a low-power WiFi hub for
passengers, improve the portability (out of the
car, when walking).
TOMTOM should also work with mobile phone
makers to integrate its own function, or to
promote the live update of navigation data in
partnership with networks of local radio
broadcasters, or with web search engines and
yellow page services. There's certainly a lot
that can be done in a mobile appliance, but
TOMTOM should not have to work pay Microsoft.
Let's hope that Microsoft will not tart selling
its own navigation systems (now the risk is
high, and even the existing TOMTOM competitors
may protest as they have licenced Windows).
Why did they even chose Windows OS or a Windows
storage system, instead of just creating a USB
driver for Windows (for the connectivity), or
using patent-free web protocols like HTTP and
WebDAV for controling and interfacing these
devices?