Discovery Channel Sues Amazon Over Ebook Patent
from the aren't-patents-great? dept
Because it's quite obvious that no one would ever have come up with copy protection on an ebook reader without the Discovery Channel's CEO coming up with this patent, the entertainment company has now sued Amazon.com for patent infringement, claiming that the Kindle infringes on the patent. Of course, Amazon could avoid all of this if it hadn't put DRM on the Kindle... but then how would it use the DMCA to block interoperability? In the meantime, is Discovery Communications so hard up these days that it needs to sue companies in entirely different businesses over a patent on a concept in a field it's not even close to being in? In the meantime, perhaps some patent attorneys could weigh in, but reading through the claims on the patent, I'm wondering how this patent is valid in a post-KSR/Teleflex world, which supposedly noted that patents that simply combined two obvious ideas should be obvious as well. The patent in question certainly looks like "DRM + ebooks," both of which were rather well-known and widely discussed at the time the patent was filed.Filed Under: ebooks, kindle, obviousness, patents
Companies: amazon, discovery communications
