M-edge & Amazon--how sad

[Jesslyn]

This is horrible news.  I tend to take the side of the little guy in these types of disputes and if true, Amazon should be ashamed.  M-edge, along with a couple of other vendors, were one of the first companies to support the Kindle 1.  I know everyone is in it to make money, but really guys, can't we all just get along?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/28/m-edge-suit-accuses-amazon-of-corporate-bullying-patent-infring/

[LaraAmber]

I have no idea about the contract deals, but the "you stole our light idea" is just nonsense.  Booklights have existed forever and M-edge did not develop a booklight that was fully integrated into the case or ran off the Kindle battery, two things that Amazon did do.  M-edge had a booklight that ran off a AA battery as a separate accessory that fit inside their cases.  That wasn't exactly ground-breaking. 

[Luvmy4brats]

I also don't know about the contract, but the issue with the lights is just silly (IMO)

[Kathy]

Also a little late in the game to be accusing Amazon.

[The Hooded Claw]

I am generally an Amazon fanboy. But in this case my sympathy is with M—Edge even though I am not a user of their products. I'm assuming there's not a lot more to the story than what we see here.

[VictoriaP]

Setting aside the pricing issue--if true, it's pretty nasty, but until proof comes out in court, I'll withhold judgement. I do predict the "patent infringement" will be tossed out of court. I seem to recall dead tree book covers with lights (might have been Itty Bitty Book Lights?) that long predate MEdge's design. And as others mentioned, there's more than enough differences between the two.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

This is, unfortunately, what happens when you place all of your eggs in one basket.  Amazon controls you when you are dependent on them for your business, and they can change the rules at any time regardless of what the contract says merely by threatening to bury your products so that nobody can find them. 

[meromana]

This is, unfortunately, what happens when you place all of your eggs in one basket.  Amazon controls you when you are dependent on them for your business, and they can change the rules at any time regardless of what the contract says merely by threatening to bury your products so that nobody can find them. 

Exactly!  This is really scary and quite disappointing.  I went to b-school, I get it--Amazon is a for-profit company, and they're going to work every advantage to excel in their marketplace and maximize profit, but there's a fine line between strategic business decisions and unethical behavior.  Unless there's a lot more to this story than we've been told, Amazon just crossed that line.

--Maria

[mooshie78]

Pretty lame.  I had an M-Edge Go case for my K2 and have an M-Edge Go case and the light that goes with it for my K3.  Very quality cases.  I didn't want to give Amazon money for cases after they made the K2 and beyond not come with a case after the K1 included one.

I've always been happy with Amazon's prices and services, but their near monopoly status as they continue to grow and dominate online sales does bother me.

[Hadou]

I assume this will settle out of court.

It's sad that it's come to something like this, but it happens in business.

[MariaESchneider]

I saw that but it was hard to tell what is going on, mainly because the case can't have worked without the Kindle design--the ones that plug into the kindle had to have the way to USE the Kindle battery in the first place.  Now whether the egg or the chicken came first...

OT: I have a hug type light.  I don't like it for reading, but it makes for a decent flashlight.  I'm planning on giving it to my mom because she actually uses a flashlight to read sometimes.

[mooshie78]

I saw that but it was hard to tell what is going on, mainly because the case can't have worked without the Kindle design--the ones that plug into the kindle had to have the way to USE the Kindle battery in the first place.  Now whether the egg or the chicken came first...

I don't think M-Edge makes any cases that use the Kindle battery.  They have a separate light that runs on a AAA battery that slides into a slot on some of their cases.

It just sounds like Amazon is trying to bully them by taking more of a cut for any M-Edge cases sold on Amazon.com as they don't like the competition for their own overpriced cases.

[LaraAmber]

Pretty lame.  I had an M-Edge Go case for my K2 and have an M-Edge Go case and the light that goes with it for my K3.  Very quality cases.  I didn't want to give Amazon money for cases after they made the K2 and beyond not come with a case after the K1 included one.

They made the correct business decision.  If you are trying to find ways to cut the price of a device so more people will buy it and you discover that most people aren't using an included accessory and prefer to pick their own, you drop the accessory.  Especially since most people consider covers to be an accessory and are used to not getting covers included when they buy cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc.  I paid almost $400 for my first Kindle and $149 for my second.       

[mooshie78]

They made the correct business decision.  If you are trying to find ways to cut the price of a device so more people will buy it and you discover that most people aren't using an included accessory and prefer to pick their own, you drop the accessory.  Especially since most people consider covers to be an accessory and are used to not getting covers included when they buy cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc.  I paid almost $400 for my first Kindle and $149 for my second.       

Maybe so.  In any case, I figured they were getting enough of my money for the device.   And I like supporting smaller companies when possible and equally cheap/convenient.  So I was happy to by another brands case.  Amazon's cases being so overpriced (IMHO) made the decision easy as well.

Amazon has rubbed me the wrong way with some of their business practices in recent years, so I've been trying to spend money elsewhere when I can do so for the same or less cost.  They have too good of prices, and I love the Kindle too much, to truly boycott them though!

[NightGoat]

I don't think M-Edge makes any cases that use the Kindle battery.

I have never seen a case that uses Kindle's battery like the Amazon case. I would bet that they (Amazon) probably hold the patent for that design, otherwise we would see more, maybe even better designed 3rd-party cases with built in light.

[mlewis78]

I read some articles about this and started to read the brief and thought zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

I don't think that Amazon did anything illegal.  Both companies are trying maximize profits. 

I supported M-Edge and bought a lot of K-2 covers and once the K3 came out, they abandoned real leather for the go jacket and charge just as much or more for faux leather.  I stopped buying from them.  They've been shooting their own business, IMHO.  Litigation costs against a giant will take them down further.

[balaspa]

If it's true it's hard for me not to root for the little guy.  However, you just can never be sure about these things unless you see what evidence is presented.

[Veronica]

Read this earlier today.  I thought the timeline was very informative compared to the other, generic, articles I had read:

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/kindle-case-maker-m-edge-sues-amazon-for-patent-infringement-unfair-competition-20111228/

I can't say how objective the information is.  Either it's biased towards M-Edge, or I'm just intrinsically biased towards the little guy. 

I love the M-Edge cases.  I would never have found them except for the poor design of the original Amazon cover for the original Kindle--the one that always fell out of the Amazon case that came with it.  Since then I've bought an M-Edge case for my K2, my mom bought one for her K3, and I just bought one for my K Touch.  And I always bought direct from the M-Edge site rather than Amazon.

Maybe this is just how capitalism works, but it makes me sad nonetheless.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

I can't say how objective the information is.  Either it's biased towards M-Edge, or I'm just intrinsically biased towards the little guy. 

I don't think that is biased at all.  It is a pretty straightforward timeline, and if the timeline is backed up with documentation, Amazon is in deep crap.  They had a contract, and then tried to break the contract using coercive means.  This part here is really troubling:

February 2010: Amazon demands back payments at the 32% rate, meaning M-Edge owes Amazon $600,000. M-Edge refuses pointing to their existing 3-year contract. Amazon threatens “ramifications.”

So not only did they try to break the legal contract, but they tried to make it retroactive?  Foul ball.

[Eltanin Publishing]

I just want to point out that it is M-Edge suing Amazon, not the other way around. Some comments here seem to be of the like "how dare Amazon bully little M-Edge". I don't know enough to take sides, but it is M-Edge that is suing, claiming Amazon made lighted covers too similar to theirs (which seems nuts - they are so different), not Amazon suing M-Edge.

From M-Edge's description of what happened, though, it does sound pretty bad, and it's true they no longer show up on Amazon's kindle accessories page for the new kindles. But it seems like M-Edge would have had a better case if they left out the claim of Amazon stealing their light ideas and even "colors". Really? You can patent a color?

And M-Edge states "M-Edge reports customers no longer wanting to deal with the company “fearing repercussions with Amazon” if they did." Maybe they don't mean customers like you and me - I certainly do not "fear repercussions with Amazon" if I buy an M-Edge case. So that seems a little silly. Unless they mean other online stores as "customers"?

[meromana]

I just want to point out that it is M-Edge suing Amazon, not the other way around. Some comments here seem to be of the like "how dare Amazon bully little M-Edge". I don't know enough to take sides, but it is M-Edge that is suing, claiming Amazon made lighted covers too similar to theirs (which seems nuts - they are so different), not Amazon suing M-Edge.

I think people do understand what's going on.  Amazon is being described as a bully for the actions that prompted M-Edge to sue them, namely, forcing them to re-negotiate the terms of their contract by threatening to bury their products and make them difficult to find on the Amazon site.  It is hard to not see that as bullying and raises reasonable concern about how Amazon may choose to treat other business partners in the future.

--Maria

[LaraAmber]

I don't think that is biased at all.  It is a pretty straightforward timeline, and if the timeline is backed up with documentation, Amazon is in deep crap.  They had a contract, and then tried to break the contract using coercive means.  This part here is really troubling:

So not only did they try to break the legal contract, but they tried to make it retroactive?  Foul ball.

It's clearly biased since they say right in the article that the timeline came from the lawsuit documentation.  This was not an independent timeline put together by geek.com.

Unfortunately the sued party usually keeps their mouth shut at the advice of their lawyers while a suit is in progress, which means we only get one side of the story. 

[Eltanin Publishing]

It's clearly biased since they say right in the article that the timeline came from the lawsuit documentation.  This was not an independent timeline put together by geek.com.

Unfortunately the sued party usually keeps their mouth shut at the advice of their lawyers while a suit is in progress, which means we only get one side of the story. 

Right - it certainly looks pretty bad (it looks like Amazon was evil), and that certainly might be the case. But we don't know, because this is one party's side of the story. There are people saying they'll never do business with Amazon again based on this, and I think that's premature. If you readily believe only one person's side of the story as told in a lawsuit, then you'd believe that Justin Beiber really did father a child with that girl.

Again - it does look like Amazon behaved quite badly, but we can't know until both sides come out.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

I think part of the problem is that this is coming out at a time when Amazon has been engaging in some pretty aggressive behavior.  You have the whole lending library thing which wants exclusivity and, from every single customer service email that has come out, that exclusivity INCLUDES no excerpts on your own site.  Some authors are being told they are not even allowed to give out review copies of their own books.  They closed down Mobipocket.com a couple of months ago and left hundreds of eretailers out to dry who used it to stock their virtual shelves.  You have the App they released that paid customers and incentive to go into bookstores and browse, then buy from Amazon.  Taken individually, these are non-inssues for a lot of folks.  Taken together over a short period of time, it is a disconcerting pattern of aggressive behavior. 

[sparklemotion]

It sounds like bullying to me. I can't say I'm surprised though really, all big corporations are very shrewd.