Honeywell slaps Nest Labs with lawsuit over thermostat @ CNET News.
Honeywell filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and is seeking to stop sales of Nest Labs’ high-profile thermostat. The lawsuit claims that Nest Labs infringes seven Honeywell patents. The longtime thermostat maker is seeking damages and is trying to prevent Nest Labs and Best Buy, which is also named in the suit, from selling Nest Labs’ Learning Thermostat.
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Aww, man. They’re just jealous. @Honeywell: grow up, try to make something nice yourselves…
It is a shame that companies would rather litigate than innovate. I believe that this is one reason that our economy is in the sorry state that it is in. Small innovative companies cannot compete with big companies legal teams.
Typical large corporation reaction and greed. I wonder how many sweat shops in China do they manufacture their products in? That is what is killing American enterprise…their lawyers should find new jobs..
@neutron spin,
According to Amazon at least some of the thermostats are made in the USA. See for example http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QNZWV8/ref=asc_df_B005QNZWV81894732?smid=A22ZN1B182ACTT&tag=dealtmp491531-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B005QNZWV8
From the article one of the patents is “…the ability to program the thermostat by having the consumer answer questions, such as “What temperatures do you like when you are away. ”
Sigh…
The ONLY purpose of patents these days, is for large companies to kill competition from smaller companies.
It’s the exact opposite of the founding principles of the patent system – to encourage innovation. It’s now a quagmire the restricts innovation.
We should scrap the entire patent system – the whole idea of “intellectual property” is a fallacy… anachronistic, unworkable and it achieves the opposite of what it’s meant to.
“…the ability to program the thermostat by having the consumer answer questions, such as “What temperatures do you like when you are away. ”
I would call the statement above a wizard. What difference does it make that it is a thermostat asking the question?
The patent office needs overhauling.
In all their attention to building better systems to blow people up, Honeywell would never come up with something as Avant Garde as this extremely simple and stylish thermostat. The old circular wall dial with included mercury switch in current designer colors is more like their speed.
While they have good technique for building a lot of electronic equipment, they’re totally missing the boat in the avionics market and we’ve pretty much discontinued their line of “through hole” 1980’s product in preference to Garmin’s up-to-date SMT technology.
This does not seem to be a simple case of copyright trolling. Most of the listed patents are all still valid (although some are pretty general) and when every other HVAC control company licenses with Honeywell there is really no excuse. Nest either did not apply due diligence or simply thought they were above that. As far as the nest thermostat as a product this is one poor control system if you think you will save your 200$ back through its energy efficiency. A 75$ “ugly” programmable thermostat that can actually control a High efficiency HVAC system (not just control on off times and look pretty) will do a much better job. Coming from that apple heritage this was meant to be showy first and function second.