Amazon.com Strikes Back at Discovery Communications

Amazon.com asserted three patents against Discovery Communications, owner of the well known cable TV brand, the Discovery Channel, as well as other goods and services sold under the Discovery name and mark. The patents-in-suit are U.S. Nos. 6,006,225 ("Refining Search Queries by Suggestion of Correlated Terms from prior Searches"); 6,169,986 ("System and method for Refining Search Queries"); 6,266,649 ("Collaborative Recommendations Using Item-to-Item Similarity Mappings"); and 6,317,722 ("Use of Electronic Shopping Carts to Generate Personal Recommendations") All patents are asserted against Discovery through its use of the Discovery Store website.

In March, Amazon was sued by Discovery Communications in the District of Delaware under U.S. Patent No. 7,298,851 ("Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System"), a patent that, according to Discovery, covers Amazon's popular Kindle e-book product.

In a statement, Joseph A. LaSala, Jr., General Counsel of Discovery Communications, said: "The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems. We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly. Our tradition as an inventive company has produced considerable intellectual property assets for our shareholders, and today's infringement litigation is part of our effort to protect and defend those assets."

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