Discovery hits Amazon with Kindle patent suit

Correction, 10:50 a.m. PDT: This story gave an incorrect date for the filing of the patent. It was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1999.

Update: 2:10 p.m. To include Discovery's reasons for owning e-book patent.

Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, has filed a complaint against Amazon.com alleging that some security and copy protection features in the Kindle and Kindle 2 violate the company's patents.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Discovery has asked for unspecified monetary compensation.

Amazon representatives were not immediately available for comment.

According to a copy of the suit, Discovery charges that Amazon violated its patent for Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System. The patent, U.S. 7,298,851, was issued to Discovery Communications by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Nov. 20, 2007, per the lawsuit filing (PDF). It was initially filed in 1999.

The technology "provides for secure distribution of electronic text and graphics to subscribers and secure storage," Discovery said in the lawsuit.

My question is, why did Discovery create technology for an e-book reader? Is the entertainment company preparing to follow Amazon, Sony, and Hearst Corp. into the e-reader space?

After talking to a Discovery spokeswoman, she explains that the company's founder, John Hendricks is a bit of an inventor. In the 1990s, Hendricks tried his hand at coming up with systems to digitize content.

He explored technologies involving the digitization of TV content as well as e-book systems. In 2004, he sold the TV patents but Discovery kept the e-reader patents. When asked whether Discovery could build an e-book reader, the company's spokeswoman said "We are only focused on the Kindle at this time."

[getwired]

Interesting. I'm pretty sure that at least Adobe has some patents that pre-date that patent that may well be considered prior art. Either way, bizarre for Discovery to patent that, and in very poor taste to pursue litigation in this way. Good luck to AMZN.

[joerickx]

Why go to the trouble and expense of going "into the e-reader space" when you can just sit back and sue everybody else that does. nifty business plan, eh?

[Rialtus]

Why not? It's working for TiVo.

[tauvix]

@Rialtus: Except that Tivo actually makes a product that utilizes their patents.

[-fjtorres-]

Lets see, Kindle was introduced on November 19, 2007.

Nuvomedia introduced the Rocket ebook in1998 and it worked pretty much as the Kindle, but over a modem instead of a cellular wireless data network.
Oh, and Discover filed their patent on September 21, 1999.

I don't think that going from wired data to wireless is non-obvious.
But hey, lawyers need to work too.
Especially thosed based in Tyler, Texas.

[Michael too]

Ooooh! Maybe this means that all DRM on ebooks is covered by Discovery's patent. Now if only they would refuse to license it to anyone ... well, you can't blame me for dreaming.

Michael

[cardfan1212]

I just stopped watching discovery or buying anything from them. That's insane.

[timber2005]

Show me a person who says they can stop watching Discovery, and i'll show a person who will shortly take back his words because he/she will realize all that is left is to watch REALITY TV.

It's insane that they had an invisionary leader?

[marc_90292]

You mean Reality TV as in Kardashian?

[mshos]

i do not follow tech news enough to know if this is a growing trend but it seems that a person invents something, patents it, and waits to sue some one else who infringes the patent. i think that intellectual property should be protected to encourage innovation, not the other way around. here's a crazy idea, why don;t people invent things than patent them and trade or sell them based on the amount of money that are potentially worth from lawsuits.

[paulimusmaximus]

Patent infringement suits like that are BS. That's like if they let Atari patent the ability to play games at home. Then we'd be stuck with only Atari video game systems. The only reason these suits keep going to court are because idiot juries judge in favor of these companies. I mean it's one thing if Discovery can prove that Amazon hired an employee from Discovery to make the Kindle, or somehow stole the technology, but it's not like making an electronic tablet that can display books is rocket science.

[marc_90292]

As I have said repeatedly, patent laws should be changed to make a patent invalid if used to restrain the trade, as in the Chevron case concerning batteries the company does not manufacture and refuses to license. The same here: no interest in developing an e-book, merely to keep (non-)competitors from selling a product.

[mindgamez]

This patent concerns the method of delivery and the encryption used as well as subscription to content not the concept of ebooks. Perhaps those who are ripping on the USPTO should read the patent before they start blaming the system. We don't know yet if other ebook readers license this patent. If Amazon uses similar encryption they look to be hosed unless they can challenge this. What astounds me is that Amazon didn't find this patent prior to releasing the Kindle. Finding "Electronic book security and copyright protection system" should not have taken long.

[batpox]

This is why we should disallow software patents. You should read the patent reference here. To paraphrase "You've got a book reader that gets the contents from somewhere and you use a key encryption scheme to protect the contents". Shame on the patent office for allowing it, and shame on the so-called "inventor" for submitting it. Absolutely ridiculous blackmail that gums up our industry and consequently hurts our country.