Karma313th

You guys have caught the clause regarding the companies possibly evaluating other proposals or internal projects.

However, after reading the filing earlier on PACER, a couple interesting points occurred to me.

First is obviously the use of B&N's standard NDA template....a template that includes a choice of venue clause.

There's also a clause explicitly stating that any information exchanged under the NDA should not be construed to imply any sort of business relationship and in fact does not constitute a commitment or inducement to take it as such.

Also, in the complaint filed by Spring Design, they state that initial contact was in February, with powerpoint presentations occurring during the April - July time frame.

If you've glanced at the exhibits attached to the complaint, you'll have seen samples of the powerpoint slides included in the presentation made to B&N executives......Most striking, is that it appears the Alex DID steal it's initial design from the Nintendo DS. Not just two screens, but two screens attached in a clamshell device with a hinge separating the two screens? In other words, a large DS with an e-ink top display and a lower lcd touch screen.

I'm wondering exactly when the Alex design changed as there are no exhibits of powerpoint slides showing the Alex in it's most recent incarnation.

As it stands, from my perspective, Spring Design has an uphill battle in front of them. My take on it is they were excited, they had their first "big bite" since the company started showing the concept around and got ahead of themselves. From what I can deduce from the details in the filing, and the people at B&N they were talking to, it sounds like B&N were approaching this as a possible arrangement similar to what they have with iRex and Plastic Logic's Que.

Spring Design jumped the gun and thought it was going to be something more.

WTF?

A pulse oximeter?

Nintendo's going after the medical market I guess.

If I'm reading this correctly, it looks like Xav got the "Microsoft to share up to 70%" a little backwards.

From the information provided by Microsoft, it sounds like they're saying that developers will keep 80 to 90 percent of sales unless Microsoft's promotion helps sell above a certain threshold. In that event, Microsoft takes a 30% cut of the pie.

In other words, it would be more accurate to say that Microsoft will share up to 90% of sales profit.