January 7th, 2009
Patent troll sues Oprah over Sony BookReader(!??)
This is a head-scratcher. Patent troll Illinois Computer Research is suing Oprah’s Harpo Productions for violating its 7,111,252 patent, which was filed by patent attorney Scott C. Harris and describes a method for “Enhancing Touch and Feel on the Internet, The Prior Art blog reports.
That appears to be a pretty broad patent. While the patent describes the invention as something that would allow Internet users to view a 3D representation of any product, it also describes an “implementation” focused on showing users the covers and limited number of pages of a book. From the suit:
[The patent allows a site to display] excerpts from a digital book for preview prior to purchase, but prevents the reader from obtaining and reviewing the entire book prior to purchase.
The patent emphasizes showing only a limited number of pages, which makes one think of Google’s Book Search. Indeed, Harris was fired from huge patent firm Fish & Richardson because ICR sued Google, one of F&R’s top clients, over this exact patent. Hmm, makes you wonder if the patent was filed solely to litigate against Google.
But what does this all have to do with Harpo? This article says the Oprah’s Book Club website “infringed on the patent by encouraging or contributing to others use of its Oprah Book Club product. The acts of infringement is through Harpo Productions website that reaches and instructs customers to buy and use products.”
The suit also says Sony violates the 252 patent through its Sony BookReader, although the Oprah site promotes Amazon’s Kindle most prominently.
As Mullin notes, the Oprah suit may be more about publicity than merits.
