Honeywell's Lawsuit Against Nest: The Perfect Example Of Legacy Players Using Patents To Stifle Innovation
from the if-you-had-invented-nest,-you'd-be-making-nest-devices dept
I'd been meaning to write about this lawsuit ever since it was filed, but other stuff got in the way, so this is a bit of a catch-up post, to go along with Honeywell's response to Nest's counterclaims (which we'll get to in a bit). But the key to this highly questionable lawsuit is that electronics giant Honeywell wants to use the patent system to effectively kill off the well-hyped Nest thermostat. Nest, a company that launched just last fall, got some well-deserved attention for applying an Apple-like design sense to everyday gadgets -- starting with the lowly thermostat, a device that really hasn't seen that much innovation in quite some time. The product was, indeed, a pretty big leap forward, and I know a bunch of people who have Nest devices and love them.But, of course, under a crony capitalist system, the incumbents can't have any of this nasty "disruption." Honeywell was not pleased. Bizarrely, just days before Honeywell filed the lawsuit, it had told GigaOm that it had built something similar to Nest but killed it off because consumers weren't interested. Yeah, this certainly sounds like a company jealous that Nest actually figured out how to truly innovate (bring something to market in a way consumers want) rather than just invent (create something new).
The simple fact here is that consumers really seem to like the Nest, and apparently Honeywell is ill-equipped to compete in the marketplace. So it's response is to sue and try to kill off the competition. It's a sickening display of a legacy company resting on its laurels afraid to actually compete in the market against a disruptive player that's younger and nimbler and actually in touch with what consumers want. Out of this, we get some absolutely ridiculous claims, such as the suggestion that Honeywell has patented the idea of a thermostat asking you what temperature you like, and only Honeywell could do such a thing:
Honeywell also seems to suggest that merely connecting a thermostat to the internet infringes on its patents, because, of course, no one else could have possibly thought of connecting home devices to the internet before Honeywell came along. While the filing also does highlight some evidence that Nest looked at Honeywell thermostats, isn't that how competition works? You look at what others are doing, and figure out how you can do it better? Basically, what Honeywell seems to be admitting is that it can't do it better, so instead it will sue.
Nest's counterclaim hit back pretty hard on a bunch of these points, stating upfront:
This lawsuit is a bald effort by Honeywell to inhibit competition from a promising new company and product in a field that Honeywell has dominated for decades. Nest Labs, with its Nest Learning Thermostat, has generated consumer and critical enthusiasm around the home thermostat -- a device that most people had long since written off as a bland, dumb appliance.... That "blah-looking controller" on the market today is very often from Honeywell, which has long dominated the thermostat market, but has yet to generate a device that offers ordinary consumers as much as the Nest Learning Thermostat. Instead of countering product innovation with its own new products, Honeywell has a track record of responding to innovation with lawsuits and overextended claims of intellectual property violations.Nest also points out that Honeywell has lost previous lawsuits that similarly appeared to be bullying competitors. The Nest response doesn't just call out the company for what it's obviously trying to do, but further claims that all of the patents are "hopelessly invalid" and points to prior art that raises significant questions about the validity of the patents in play.
Nest also files some counterclaims for declaratory judgment -- which basically start out as a long commercial about Nest and how awesome everyone thinks it is. While this may seem out of place, there's a reason for this. The company is trying to demonstrate that it's not just a clone of Honeywell, but that it (not Honeywell) is the true innovator here. It not only pumps itself up, but provides plenty of evidence of Honeywell's own failures to innovate.
The latest news is that Honeywell has now filed its own response to Nest's counterclaims and (not surprisingly), Honeywell is not at all happy. It says that Nest's counterclaims are "self-serving characterizations based on Nest Labs' unfounded opinions and speculations that are irrelevant to Honeywell's valid claims..." These are legal filings, so I'm pretty sure that all of them are "self-serving." As for whether or not they're "unfounded opinions and speculations," that seems like a pretty big stretch from Honeywell, in an attempt to smear any competition making valid legal arguments against them.
Either way, it does not seem like either side is likely to back down any time soon. So, what remains is a classic case of a legacy industry player who failed to adapt reacting to the young upstart everyone likes by going legal, rather than actually competing. This is pretty short-sighted. If it actually competed in the market it might learn why people like the Nest device and why they're buying them instead of Honeywell thermostats. All I know is that my house has a Honeywell thermostat currently, and this lawsuit makes me much more interested in buying a Nest device to replace it.
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Filed Under: competition, design, monopoly, thermostats
Companies: honeywell, nest labs
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Re:
I am sick and tired of this litigation happy society we live in, and I want to support companies that create innovative, competitive and most importantly, useful products that will benefit me or my family, and do what I can to support them fighting back against legacy companies that are unwilling to legitimately compete in the marketplace.
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Honeywell will bring out its competing smart thermostat after they kill off Nest's product.
As for myself, I'm perfectly fine with a plain, manual thermostat. The more complicated you make things, the more chance there is for something to go wrong.
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What is relevant here is whether or not the Nest product infringes one or more of the patents being asserted by Honeywell. If it does, all the "coolness" in the world is of no moment.
As for the litany of horribles alleged by Nest against the patents and Honeywell, this is not exactly surprising. In fact, I daresay Nest's counsels are definitely not innovative in that they are basically carbon copies of what every alleged infringer throws into an Answer to a Complaint alleging patent infringement.
About the only take-away from your article I have been able to identify is your deep seated animus towards anyone who happens to have a patent and asserts it in a court of law.
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It's hardly an airtight argument on its own, but it does seem like it could be a valid support.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 8th, 2012 @ 9:24pm
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Re: WTF???
Comments like that are so insanely stupid they deserve a "moron award". If you looked into this story and the interview with Honeywell where Honeywell clearly states that they looked into the market and found that consumers do not want a learning thermostat and they scrapped the idea 20 years ago, then you wouldn't make comments like that.
Why do patents exist? So that people can bring things to market. If you get a patent and then decide that you don't want to bring something to market then you don't deserve the patent.
For all the shills out there. If you are holding onto a patent and waiting for someone else to get rich so you can swoop in and sue them after they did all the WORK bringing the product to market, then you are in essence the INFRINGER.
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The "coolness" of the Nest thermostat is only part of Nest's defense. The key part of Nest's defense is similar to your "relevant" question. That is the question of the validity of Honeywell's patent. Nest is arguing that Honeywell's patents are invalid due to a variety of factors including prior art. The fact that you ignore that just shows that you are ignoring the greater issues in the patent scene.
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Re: Re:
While the facts here are a bit involved, the initial procedural steps associated with a lawsuit are common to virtually every such lawsuit. A complaint is filed, an answer is filed, and the process then moves on to the next stage known as discovery. The only difference between this matter and most others is that the defendant has elected to file counterclaims listing a host of reasons why, even if the patents are deemed valid and infringed, the plaintiff is such a "bad actor" that the patents should be deemed unenforceable.
BTW, "coolness" is totally irrelevant to patent infringement lawsuits, so even mentioning it is a waste of time and paper.
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What Nest did was make it easy for a standard home owner to have a smart thermostat that was easy to use. I have come across way to many interfaces that have taken me a good amount(15+ minutes) of time to figure out. Generally if it takes more then a minute for a user to understand operation, IT WILL NOT GET USED on a regular basis. After that point, any desired operation needs to be as few as step as possible.
Also patenting a QUESTION? How screwed up is that. How is that question anything out side of fact?
Just looking at the interface for the HWell makes me cringe. I do not want to know how many levels you have to jump through to get there. It looks like you have to answer each question.
Who here can read the nest interface and say exactly what the Cool and Heat set points are? How long does it take on the HWell side. No wonder HWell is suing.
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Might be jumping to conclusions but...
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well
They just did themselves out of at least 1 customer, and probably lots more along the way.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions...but has lawyers as speedbumps along the way!
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Re: well
I prefer to think of the lawyers as oil slicks.
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I got one
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In true Apple fashion Nest is not only pretty but simple to use and install. If I could have found a Honeywell, or any other make of thermostat that was as easy to program and not an eye sore for the price of the Nest I would have bought that.
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The stupid path
This is a product in it's infancy, and Honeywell could easily innovate in this space, but instead it chooses to litigate.
I think I'll be avoiding Honeywell products from now on - it's time for them to get out of the way.
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Re: The stupid path
This was my thought as well. Honeywell is acting like a company that is out of ideas.
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Oh, wait. Someone else figured out how to do it, AND keep it moderately simple/small enough that consumers want it? We can't have this. Lets use that good old fashioned capitalist mentality to brute force them out of the picture. If we happen to be able to reverse engineer a few good ideas out of it, maybe we'll even name our next model after them in tribute. Yeah, we'll call it the Bird, or something. Remember, as John D. Rockefeller once said, "competition is a sin."
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A nice redefinition. Be sure to remember that redefinition when someone tells you that innovation is the same thing as inventing.
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I hate to say this but...
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Thermostat patents
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Blog Support
BTW, my May-June electric bill dropped from 300$ to 150$. My Nest was delivered from the 1st batch. When we hit version 4.0, my bill should remain at almost 1/2 forever. Honeywell, you are just a big joke!!
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Just Honeywell
http://www.cleanairheat.ca/thermostats.php
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Thermostats
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