After Barnes & Noble lost a preliminary decision to Microsoft in their ongoing patent dispute, newly released legal documents — first reported by Geekwire’s Todd Bishop — show how the judge felt about Microsoft’s approach to getting Android device makers to pay up a royalty.



From Hardware 2.0:

Administrative law judge for the International Trade Commission, Theodore Essex, said that Microsoft’s negotiations with Barnes & Noble over the use of Android in the Nook were “certainly hard bargaining,” but it wasn’t patent misuse.

“Even assuming that these transactions and the related evidence establishes that Microsoft is bent on eliminating Android as a competitor, the mere fact that Microsoft is targeting Android for destruction is insufficient to establish an antitrust violation let alone patent misuse,” he wrote.

  Microsoft's Android tactics are 'hard bargaining' but not patent misuse