Amazon is being sued by Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel, for infringing one of their patents, referred to as "Electronic book security and copyright protection system."
According to
Ars Technica:
Quote:
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The majority of the patent's claims involve encrypting and delivering e-book contents, focusing on the storage of keys and secure communications—much of it seems to anticipate the DRM schemes that would be popularized shortly thereafter with digital music distribution... [a]lthough the patent suggests one distribution model that fits well with Discovery's primary business (sending the books down an unused portion of a TV signal), its authors also made sure to cover their bases by including clauses that patented book distribution over the Internet and—bad news for Amazon here—on "a wireless telephone network."
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There are more similarities described in the patent that could also be describing Amazon's current system in use for the Kindle. For instance, the patent describes "a portable book-shaped viewer" that "is used for secure viewing of the text" and goes on explaining how it can be used to receive a "created, transmitted list of titles of available electronic books."
You can view the patent in question
over here. The complaint is also available online,
over here (PDF).
Thanks to Mycropht and Treadstone71 for reporting to us the news!