Potential Patent Infringement Claims in Open eBook Arena

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

(Forwarded from Free Online Scholarship Forum)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 11:49:54 -0500
From: Peter Suber <peters@earlham.edu>
  To: fos-forum@topica.com


[Forwarding from the Open eBook Forum.  --Peter.]


OeBF Members:

A function of our organization is to keep our members
advised of developments in the eBook industry that affect
our mission.  It has come to the attention of the Open eBook
Forum that patent infringement claims are being asserted
against several of our member companies that engage in eBook
commerce.

MediaBay.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:MBAY) is asserting that it has
obtained an exclusive field of use license to the Freeny
patent (U.S. Patent No. 4,528,643).  They have made public
statements that ...we  are now the only company that can
legally offer downloads of spoken audio products and E-books
for sale and transfer to a mobile device or storage media
using this method. 

For a recent press release regarding this matter please see: 

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020801/nyth054_1.html

While the Open eBook Forum does not and will not offer legal
advice to any of our members or others  regarding this or
any matter, we do intend to assemble relevant facts and
resources for our  membership and the eBook industry at
large.  We have already learned of recent court decisions
that  limit the extent of these claims and also believe that
the US Patent is scheduled to expire early next  year.  We
are working to collect relevant data and have it available
from the OeBF website in the near  future.

Should you desire more information or to be put in contact
with others already dealing with this issue, please let me
know and I will assist.  Again, should you have any
questions regarding this matter consult your own attorney.

--
Nick Bogaty
Executive Director
Open eBook Forum
nbogaty@openebook.org
(212) 924-9081 direct
(212) 208-0978 fax