Microsoft sued for infringement of dynamic tile patents

According to foreign media reports, operating system technology company SurfCast sued Microsoft in the United States District Court in Maine on Tuesday, accusing Microsoft of including Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Phone 8. The use of a dynamic tile icon in the Windows operating system infringes its patent and requires the court to order Microsoft to compensate for economic losses and litigation costs.

SurfCast accuses Microsoft of infringing on the company’s 2004 patent No. 6,724,403 – a system and method for displaying multiple sources of information simultaneously. SurfCast said the company developed dynamic tile technology in the 1990s.

Unlike traditional icons, dynamic tiles display dynamically changing data related to linked elements, such as the number of unread messages in the user's inbox and information related to new messages in social network accounts. Dynamic tiles are a key element of the latest Windows versions - Windows 8, Windows 8 Professional, Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT. Microsoft introduced dynamic tiles for the first time in Windows Phone 7.

Starting with Windows 7, especially the Windows 8 series of operating systems, Microsoft redesigned the Windows user interface around the tile icons in order to make Windows more suitable for running on touch screen devices.

Microsoft did not comment on this.