Garmin's Products Get To Stay On The Shelves In Europe

from the competition-is-good dept

A few weeks ago we noted how silly the fight between Garmin and TomTom had become over the navigation device market. After each side had filed a few different patent infringement suits against each other, TomTom filed suit in Europe trying to get an injunction to get Garmin's products off the shelves, claiming that Garmin's device copied TomTom's design. Of course, the timing was important, since the goal was to get them off the shelves just as everyone began their holiday shopping. Luckily, the court recognized how ridiculous this was and has tossed out the request for an injunction, while also ordering TomTom to pay the court costs. The court noted that despite TomTom's claims that Garmin had copied its design, the devices were easy to distinguish. There are still the other patent lawsuits pending, but why can't the two companies just compete directly in the market, rather than wasting all this time and money fighting each other in court?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Evil_Bastard, 3 Nov 2006 @ 5:57am

    Garmin has been around a while, and they have a less fruity name.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    chris (profile), 3 Nov 2006 @ 7:07am

    what about the commercials?

    tom tom has retrded commercials, do they ahve a patent on those as well because they could probably get a lot of money from the beer companies for infringing on their "retarded commercials" patent.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Sanguine Dream, 3 Nov 2006 @ 7:40am

    I know!


    There are still the other patent lawsuits pending, but why can't the two companies just compete directly in the market, rather than wasting all this time and money fighting each other in court?


    Because actually competing would be too fair. Companies now have so much money that it is cheaper to sue the competition out of existence than it is to acutally try to out perform them. It's the corporate way.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.