Discover Lawsuit Against Amazon Smells Like Sour Grapes

(MoneyWatch)  Spent part of the morning reading the suit filed by Discover Communications against Amazon, which is claiming that the e-retailer infringed on a patent it had for an e-reader like Amazon's very successful Kindle. Having done so, I still don't get it. It's not as though Discover founder John Hendricks, who patented his own version of an electronic book reader, was the only person on the hunt for an "Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System" as it is described in the patent. Plus, by the time Hendricks had filed the patent, another very popular product for storing and consuming digital content had been on the market for years: the iPod. Though the Kindle and the iPod have differences, from a conceptual standpoint, they are much the same thing. The basic idea was already out there.

It is not clear from the lawsuit if there are specifics about the Kindle which make it a particular target. At this point, Discover isn't saying whether it plans to sue other makers of e-readers. (Amazon isn't commenting.)

And there are two other strange bits to this. First, Discover never actually produced its e-reader; and while that doesn't mean that companies that get to market first haven't infringed upon a patent to do so, it seems sour grapes to file a lawsuit once the target of its suit has proven successful at manufacturing a product like the one talked about in the patent. Second, did Discover have plans to build an Amazon-like bookstore, offering users hundreds of thousands of books? Was it really going to be like the Kindle in that regard? Doubtful. That's just not what the company does, and it would take countless millions in infrastructure and other costs to turn into a full-fledged bookstore.

From what little we know at this time about the suit, Discover just looks silly.