Microsoft Sued For Live Tiles In Windows 8: Were They Copied Or Is Someone Just Jealous?

You know a product or a company is doing well if it gets sued. Last year, Apple sued Samsung for their wildly popular Galaxy S range of devices. Plenty of other patent battles are going on in the Mobile Phone and Computer sphere. Now, you can add Windows 8 to that list too.

US Based company Surfcast has alleged that the entire concept of Live Tiles in Windows 8 was copied from their patent for  updating tiles way back in the 1990′s. For those of you who don’t know, the Modern UI in Windows 8 consists of Tiles instead of the traditional icons. These tiles update themselves, showing useful information like Weather, Calendar Events, new Emails, all on the tile itself. This makes it very easy to give your device a glance and come to know a lot of information.

Says a statement up on Surfcast’s website, “SurfCast, Inc. headquartered in Portland Maine, today filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court of Maine against Microsoft, Inc. alleging that Microsoft has infringed and is infringing Surfcast’s U.S. Patent No. 6,724,403 with its Windows 8 and Surface products, among others.”

Ovid Santoro, CEO of SurfCast said, ”We developed the concept of Tiles in the 1990s, which was ahead of its time. Microsoft’s Live Tiles are the centerpiece of Microsoft’s new Operating Systems and are covered by our patent.”

It is noteworthy that while Surfcast may have a patent for the same, they have not developed even a single product or service using it. Companies like this are usually referred to as ‘Patent Trolls’, who just collect patents so they can sue others and get money from them for it. Trolltech is another such company that has been trying to do the same. Whether the case will stand up in any court of law remains to be seen. Microsoft being the consumer giant that they are will surely try to get this out of the way as soon as possible, and it is entirely possible they will settle with them, even if just to get rid of the nuisance.

It is interesting to note that Windows Phone 7, and now even Windows Phone 8, both have Live Tiles. Windows Phone 7 has been around for almost two years now, but Surfcast has suddenly woken up. Definitely fishy.

What do you think? Is this just someone trying to strike while the iron is hot, or do they actually have a point? 

Image Courtesy | michaelrosmer

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