| | By John Daly in Germany @ Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:18 PM
| |
| | Microsoft says Dutch maker of GPS navigation gadgets Tomtom has been breaching various patents.
Microsoft filed an infringement claim with a US District Court in Washington and a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), after a full year of fruitless talks with Tomtom. Techflash.com reports five of the patents cover in-car navigation wizardry, while three others have to do with file-management techniques.
Microsoft is asking the ITC to issue a cease and desist order to entirely ban Tomtom products from the US marketplace, for life. According to the complaint filed with the District Court, Tomtom's CTO Peter-Frans Pauwels received a letter from Microsoft concerning IP infringements on 13 June last year. Microsoft wants the court to award it enhanced damages, as Tomtom deliberately and wilfully infringed patents.
'We have an established intellectual property licensing programme, and the patents involved in this case, relating to innovations in car navigation technology and other computing functionality, have been licensed by many others. In situations such as this, when a reasonable business agreement cannot be reached, we have no choice but to pursue legal action to protect our innovations and our partners who license them. Other companies that utilise Microsoft patents have licensed, and we are asking Tomtom to do the same,' declared Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate vice president of intellectual property. The case need not necessarily be decided by the judges, as Gutierrez added that Microsoft would 'remain open to quickly resolving this situation with them through an IP licensing agreement.”
Tomtom hasn't navigated a comment regarding the case towards us yet. X
Check out the World news on our sister site The News
| |
| |  Add Comment | |
| | | |