Spring Design denied injunction against sales of the Barnes & Noble Nook
A court has ruled that no injunction will be issued against Barnes & Noble selling its Nook e-reader. Course, this would require them to actually have some to sell.
We reported earlier this month that Spring Design has filed legal actions against Barnes & Noble over the design of its Nook e-reader. The claim from the company is that it had numerous meetings with the well-known book seller over the possibility of building an e-reader based on the Android OS, but that Barnes & Noble finally ended the talks. Some months after those talks broke off, the bookseller announced its Nook reader which looked suspiciously like the Alex reader Spring Design had been showing during those earlier meetings. As is the American way, a lawsuit was begun.
While both sides have submitted evidence, Spring Design was seeking an injunction to halt sales of the Nook during the case, but that motion has been denied. The reason for the denial is where it gets a bit amusing, and you can see it on page 10 of the motion denial (PDF link) that Engadget obtained:
Moreover, Plaintiff’s motion was heard on the day that Defendant launched its nook™ product, at which time Plaintiff did not have a commercial product available. Thus, the requested preliminary injunction halting the sale of Defendant’s product would alter the status quo, not preserve it.
While Barnes & Noble claimed that the product would begin shipping on Nov. 30, the day of this hearing, no one has claimed to have actually received one yet. So, technically, neither of the companies have “a commercial product available” at this time.
Spring Design can take solace in the fact that the document does end with a statement about the case being expedited, but seeing the speed with which American courts move, that could still be years.
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