Matt Burns for TechCrunch:
Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bullshit. This is about killing the competition.
As we noted yesterday, Nest Labs is the maker of the learning thermostat, and it’s founded by Tony Fadell, who used to run Apple’s iPod division. Matt Burns offers a good explanation of Honeywell’s complaint against Nest. It’s infuriating that, given Honeywell’s patents, it hasn’t bothered to create as good a product as Nest’s.
Solution: don’t ever buy Honeywell products again. And while you’re at it, contact Honeywell via their website and tell them why you’re never buying Honeywell products again.
Can’t complain about Honeywell and then support Apple at the same time.
I have this POS Honeywell thermostat on my wall that came with the house. Can’t wait for Nest to start selling in Canada so I can replace it with something that doesn’t reek of fail.
Right, because complaining about a big multi-national that hasn’t innovated in years and supporting an industry leading pioneer are the same thing. Alrightythen.
Well of course this is about killing competition. And IF Nest is using valid patents without permission then they deserve to be killed.
Playing the game is one thing, playing fairly is another. It is possible that Nest is in the wrong. Which sucks because the quality of what they created is said to be pretty good. But if they ‘cheated’ it’s game over. We’ll see what the courts say (especially about the validity of the patents)