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Originally Posted by rhadin
More interesting is that the patent was granted at the same time (or within a month thereof) as K1 was released. Had Amazon done its due diligence, it should have seen the pending patent applications as well as the older patents issued that are involved.
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Pending patents are not published in the US. There is no way (unless Discovery told them) that Amazon knew about the patent until it was issued. If Discovery did try to market a licensing scheme to Amazon prior to the patent being issued (when it was "patent pending") then we can only assume that they did not reach an agreement.
It is often the strategy to let an organization that infringes to go about its business. If you alert them too early they can alter their design so as to not infringe ("go around your patents") and you get nothing. If the device fails in the marketplace there are not enough dollars generated to justify going after them. Discovery utilized the best strategy, wait until the device was a success and then sue.
I was impressed by the following final claim:
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171. The method of claim 129, wherein the electronic book comprises one or more pages and wherein a viewer decrypts the electronic book page by page, each page of the one or more pages of the electronic book being decrypted just before viewing.
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First, that they were able to get 171 claims beyond the prior patent claims and, second, that they followed the current TV method of decrypting on a frame-by-frame (page-by-page) method.
I do agree, many of the claims are obvious and I feel not supportable. Thankfully, both companies are well heeled and can fight a lawsuit with each other.
The question now is: "How quickly will they settle?" As word of this spreads many people will back off from buying the Kindle (and perhaps other readers as well) for fear that they cannot get new books for the unit. The quicker Amazon settles, the more likely the settlement will be favored toward Discovery. This could set a bad precedent for other companies wanting to incorporate wireless communication in their devices.