Barnes & Noble is Sued Over Nook E-reader

Image via The New York Times

It seemed like just last week that some complaints about Barnes & Noble’s new e-reader, the Nook, began to trickle up to the surface of the Internet. Most of it focused on the highly desirable lending feature, which for e-reader owners was a step in the right direction. The Nook’s lending feature, however, only allowed a book to be lent one time and for a period of only 14 days. This did not go over well with hopeful e-reader advocates.

Now it appears Barnes & Noble’s Nook has another problem with which to contend. Cupertino, California-based Spring Design has filed suit against Barnes & Noble for breaking a non-disclosure agreement the two companies had regarding technologies involved in Spring Design’s own e-reader, Alex.

Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of Barnes and Noble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex,” Spring Design said in a statement. “Throughout, Barnes & Noble’s marketing and technical executives extolled Alex’s ‘innovative’ features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook.”

No real details of the suit have been released yet regarding compensation sought or where the suit was filed. As e-readers continue to evolve in this shaky publishing market, I hope these lawsuits are kept to a minimum. Copyrighted technology is certainly worthy to pursue in a court of law, but too many of these instances will only hobble and mar an e-reader future that has to happen sooner rather than later.

via Barnes & Noble hit with suit over Nook | Beyond Binary – CNET News.