Barnes & Noble, which recently announced plans for its Nook eBook reader and digital content to be available in the UK, has confirmed its first UK retail partner.

John Lewis will be selling the Nook Simple Touch (and Simple Touch with GlowLight) eBook readers in its 37 UK stores and online.

The Barnes & Noble NOOK - a rival to Amazon’s Kindle eBook readers - is coming to the UK from mid-October this year.

The WiFi-enabled electronic book readers and compatible eBooks will be available via www.nook.co.uk from the autumn, with high-street and online retail partnerships still to be announced. It’s the first time B&N has offered its NOOK for sale outside the USA.

US-based bookseller Barnes & Noble has formed a partnership with Microsoft that’ll bring together Barnes & Noble’s digital ‘eBook’ and College education businesses.

The new company will be a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble and will be 17.6% owned by Microsoft, which is investing $300 million in the business.

New figures from the International Data Corporation show that media tablet shipments haven’t increased as much as expected.

IDC’s Media Tablet and eReader Tracker notes that shipments into sales channels rose by 23.9% from the previous quarter to 18.1 million units in Q3 2011. That’s an increase of 264.5% from the same quarter in 2010... but is 5.8% below IDC’s original forecast of 19.2 million units.

Microsoft is taking legal action against Barnes & Noble for patent infringement by its 'Nook' Android-based eBook reader. The action also includes device manufacturers Foxconn International Holdings and Inventec Corporation. It follows last year's patent agreement that covered HTC mobile phones running the Android platform.

The disputed patents cover a number of functions in the Android user interface.