The Discovery Channel filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Amazon’s e-book reader, the Kindle. The suit claims that Kindle violates a patent filed by the Discovery Channel in 2007 according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The company cited founder and chairman John Hendricks’ role in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990s. Among other things, his work included inventions of “a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission and sale of electronic books,” Discovery said.
“The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems,” said Discovery general counsel Joseph LaSala Jr. “We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation.”
Amazon.com officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
What about all the other e-book readers out there? The Nintendo DS is being used as an e-book reader. Sony has one. Apple has two with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Methinks ignoring all the others and going after just one product smells fishy.
Not only that, but have the *done* anything with their rights? I don’t remembre hearing about a Discovery Channel reader….
-GB-
Come on, the damn thing (and its ebooks) are expensive enough as it is… let’s not throw a stupid patent licensing fee on top of it!
I agree with GazerBeam… what have they done with their bright idea in the 10+ years that they have had the patent?
I think sometimes people and corporations file patents they think sounds like a good idea at the time, so that when someone else comes up with the same idea later they can scream lawsuit. Maybe I should go and patent some obvious piece of technological upgrade so I can have a get a cut of it when someone else actually takes the time (and money) to develop it.
Maybe they want Amazon to remove the “encrypted” part 😉
“…Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular…” That really should say it all. It really doesn’t matter what their “content delivery” method is. It delivers content over the internet. That’s enough similarity to file a suit. Now, if they can sucker a judge into agreeing with them, well, Amazon’s not the only group that could effect.
Isn’t it really great that Discovery is trying to stop e-book progress. If they get a judge to agree with them it could set back e-books a decade. Looks like there’s finally a channel I’ll never watch again.
The whole Kindle concept is pointless. Really, you want me to pay $360 so I can keep spending 10 bucks per book? I get the whole “carry hundreds of books with you thing,” but I have never felt a need to have more than one book at a time. Tech for tech’s sake is a waste of cash.
you can buy ebooks for a heck of a lot less than ten bucks rtyom. you want some good stories, check out micheal stackpoole’s at :
http://www.stormwolf.com
(ding)
there are others too, some are even free. just have to look.
Tim
have to agree with summer, (i do that a lot it seems); I own one of the new kindles but also you my ipod touch for ebooks as well. kindle feels more like a book in my hand, and it being larger, helps as well. getting older, eyes tend to go.
tim