Discovery vs. Amazon.com

Discovery Channel與Animal Planet的母公司Discovery Communication於2009.3.18.向德拉瓦州地方法院提出訴訟，指控Amazon的Kindle與Kindle 2電子書閱讀器某些安全與防拷功能侵犯該公司專利，並要求一筆數目不詳金額的損害賠償。

US7,298,851
Title:Electronic book security and copyright protection system
Filing Date:1999.9.21
Issue Date:2007.11.20.
Abstract:
The invention, electronic book security and copyright protection system, provides for secure distribution of electronic text and graphics to subscribers and secure storage. The method may be executed at a content provider's site, at an operations center, over a video distribution system or over a variety of alternative distribution systems, at a home subsystem, and at a billing and collection system. The content provider or operations center and/or other distribution points perform the functions of manipulation and secure storage of text data, security encryption and coding of text, cataloging of books, message center, and secure delivery functions. The home subsystem connects to a secure video distribution system or variety of alternative secure distribution systems, generates menus and stores text, and transacts through communicating mechanisms. A portable book-shaped viewer is used for secure viewing of the text. A billing system performs the transaction, management, authorization, collection and payments utilizing the telephone system or a variety of alternative communication systems using secure techniques.

Smart的看法
Discovery在大眾心目中是一個從影片製作的頻道業者，誰也沒想到它會去申請一個電子書著作權保護的專利，從這個專利看來，也許有一天，Discovery可能會將它的影片透過該專利的保護，放到手持式裝置供人閱讀。