TomTom Case Settled and Other Legal News

Only weeks after Microsoft sued automotive navigation device maker TomTom for patent infringement and TomTom countersued, the companies announced that they had reached a settlement. The dispute was notable because although Microsoft has often claimed that Linux infringes on its patents, this case was the first in which the company had named some of these patents in a public legal document. As part of the settlement, TomTom has agreed to stop using certain Linux features that allegedly infringe Microsoft’s patents, which could lend strength to Microsoft’s assertions and ease further licensing agreements.

Separately, Microsoft faced a US$388 million penalty in a patent infringement case brought by Uniloc, won a ruling invalidating an Alcatel-Lucent patent that had resulted in a previous US$358 million penalty, and settled a patent-infringement suit brought by an Australian research body.

TomTom Settlement

The TomTom dispute began in Feb. 2009, when Microsoft filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Western Washington and a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC). Although Microsoft never named Linux specifically, both complaints named three patents related to file system management. The file system used in TomTom’s products is based on Linux, so Microsoft was in effect alleging that TomTom’s implementation of Linux violated three of its patents. Microsoft also alleged that TomTom had violated several other patents related to automotive navigation.