[LaraAmber]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29741314/

Personally I think they are fishing for money.

Lara Amber

 

[KBoards Admin]

That seems to have little merit. I wonder if Discovery was ever planning to act on that patent..?!

 

[intinst]

Fishing expeditions sometimes come back with their limits.

 

[Jeff]

Patents are often far too broad. For years, until the patent expired, Compuserv had the internet tied up with claims for the compression algorithm used in GIF images. In this case the patent applies to the a method of encrypting digital content. Many lawyers will get rich and the consumer will end up paying the bills.

 

[unrequited]

I think it's not Amazon that they're suing, but the creators of the .mobi format (Mobipocket SA which is yes, not a part of Amazon) that is being sued. I don't see why Microsoft isn't sued for .lit or Palm for .pdb because they can all be encrypted for digital distribution as well eh?

 

[arshield]

The patent is from 1999 but Adobe had encrypted Adobe PDF files before that.  It would seem to be a bad patent given the reporting, but just because it is a bad patent doesn't mean that a judge somewhere won't uphold it.

 

[pomlover2586]

sounds like bologna to me........

 

[MAGreen]

Sounds like a bunch of companies just want a piece of the pie!

 

[nelamvr6]

Seems like sharks... as soon as they smell a company with a hit on their hands like Amazon has with the Kindle they come swimming in hoping to make an easy kill.

Luckily I'm sure Jeff Bezos has a fairly decent legal depaptrmrnt and a whole bunch of lawyers on retainer...

 

[kevindorsey]

Another lawsuit to pollute US courtrooms 

 

[Kind]

Sounds like a bunch of companies just want a piece of the pie!

Yep, too many cases like this go on all the time.

 

[sue1326]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29741314/

Something about an old patent.

 

[luvmy4brats]

I'm going to merge this with another thread

 

[KindleKid]

I find it interesting that they created the patent the day after the K1 was released...sounds like they had this planned.

 

[Chad Winters]

I tried to patent walking, but someone beat me to it
I think it gets a little ridiculous what is patentable these days. I remember one company trying to press a patent claim on pretty much the whole internet, and it wasn't even Al Gore!!

 

[Stephanie924]

The application resulting in this patent was filed in September 2001.  Since it is proprietary information, it is not public record until either it publishes in the U.S. Patent Office or the Patent issues, in this case, in November 2007.  However, in patent cases, an originally filed patent application (called a "Parent") can be 'divided' into several patent applications that could each issue individually at a much later date.  That is the case here.  This patent is a 'child', or related patent, of a patent application originally filed in 1993.  

As such, this Patent was not 'created' the day after the K1 released.

It will be an interesting case to follow for me.

 

[kguthrie]

This type of thing happens a lot when a company comes out with a popular product. Hopefully it just blows over.

 

[L.Canton]

Litigation like this happens all the time, and part of the reason is due to how broad the patent filings are; some of them can encompass almost anything. I really doubt anything will come of this.

 

[Jesslyn]

My 1st reaction was along the lines of 'bad karma' and 'God doesn't like ugly' - resulting from Amazon's odd letter to MobileRead

 

[MMXXVII]

This article has a drawing of one of the patents.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/03/amazons-kindle-targeted-by-patent-infringement-suit.ars