Please note this is all coming from Microsoft. TomTom has not responded to this yet in public!

Microsoft says they filed complaint at US ITC to make import of TomTom devices illegal.

According to Microsoft, Microsoft and TomTom have been around the table for more than a year to solve the patent dispute, to no avail.

TomTom is not huge corporation. They bought TeleAtlas, but filed their fiscal year 2008 3 days ago! which contained a 800M EUR loss because of the TeleAtlas buyout and a bad 2008Q4. investors.tomtom.com doesn't contain this information yet.

Here are the patents:

Patent 6175789 for installing a computer in a car
Patent 6202008 for installing a computer with wireless networking support in a car
Patent 6704032 for panning in a GUI
Patent 7054745 for giving driving directions
Patent 7117286 for recognizing when a portable computer is connected to anything

Trivial?

Because the patents seem trivial and 3 are about Linux kernel itself it is important we follow this case, and help TomTom where possible.

I bet Microsoft wants them to switch to Windows CE. Or wants to buy TomTom out. Or want to bully them as example to aid to the Linux FUD. But besides that the timing of the Microsoft press release is suspicious.

PS: Groklaw: Think Bilski