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Domain: digital-law-online.info
Stories and comments across the archive that link to digital-law-online.info.
Stories · 2
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Amazon Sued Over E-Book DRM Patent
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel, is alleging that Amazon's Kindle e-book reader infringes upon their patent for DRM-encumbered e-books (Discovery's complaint, PDF). The patent in question was filed back in 1999 and issued in 2007 — coincidentally one day after Kindle 1.0 went on the market — and has claims for DRM implemented with a great many particular symmetric key ciphers and key exchange algorithms, (the patent has 171 claims). Unlike most software patents, this one goes into quite a lot of detail about how the encryption is to be performed. But it will still be interesting to see if it can pass the 'machine or transformation' test now that In Re Bilski is being accepted as precedent. After all, it seems like all of these encryption and e-book distribution schemes could be run on a general-purpose PC, so is the 'invention' actually tied to a 'particular machine or apparatus' just because an e-book 'viewer' (not to mention 'home system', 'library', and 'kiosk') happens to be specified in the patent's claims? Or can the encryption of an e-book be claimed as some kind of 'transformation' when the law in that area is especially murky — when no one knows how In Re Bilski may affect the precedent of In Re Schrader?" -
Treatise On Software And Law Available Online
segoave writes "Lee Hollaar,Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah has made his book Legal Protection of Digital Information availible for free download. You may remember Professor Hollaar as the lead technical expert in the antitrust suits Caldera v. Microsoft and Bristol v. Microsoft (both of which settled in favor of the plaintiffs), he submitted a friend of the court brief in Microsoft's appeal in the DC Circuit. He has also he worked on patent reform legislation, database protection, and what eventually became the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Maybe this will help convince Lawrence Lessig to make his book available for download."