Microsoft sued over Windows 8 live tiles

Thu, 1st Nov 2012

FYI, this story is more than a year old

Microsoft has been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit over the "live" tile icons used in the newly released Windows 8.

SurfCast, a surf forecasting website, claims the software giant copied their design on both Windows 8 OS for PCs and tablets and in the Windows Phone 8 OS for smartphones.

The American firm filed its lawsuit at a U.S. District Court in Maine on Tuesday, seeking an unknown amount of money in damages from Microsoft.

Titled "System and Method for Simultaneous Display of Multiple Information Sources", SurfCast's patent issued in 2004 is at the centre of the dispute, after claiming to have developed the live technology in the 1990s.

Coming a day after Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer announced enthusiasm for the new operating system was "very high", the company announced four million upgrades just three days since its launch.

But SurfCast has taken issue with Microsoft's use of the live tiles, displaying dynamically-changing data in a key feature of the new operating system.

Microsoft have yet to comment on the claims.

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