Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Amazon was today awarded a dual screen eReader patent – Handheld electronic book reader device having dual displays.  The patent was filed on March 29th, 2006 and is assigned to Amazon Technologies Inc.

There’s a rather convoluted description for the dual displays when ‘dual screen’ by itself would be enough. The images clearly show the Kindle 1 and clearly indicate that the second screen Amazon is referring to is the silver strip along the side of the main screen of the original Kindle. However, the wording of the patent seems to cover all dual screen eReaders.

This patent was earlier covered by Engadget – Kudos to them for focusing some attention on it.

Does the Dual Screen Kindle Patent cover Nook?

First, let’s look at how the dual screen kindle ereader patent talks about the second screen. Initially it starts off by talking about a second screen very similar to the navigation strip on the Kindle 1 -

1. It refers to it as ‘an elongated narrow display positioned alongside the electronic paper display’.
2. It talks about a cursor that is movable within this second display. 
3. The refresh rate of the second display is faster than the refresh rate of the first display.
4. The second display is responsive to tactile commands entered using a stylus or scroll wheel or page turner.
5. The pictures also refer to this display.

However, things get very interesting further on in the Patent as the possibilities for the second screen start expanding.

Yes, the Nook is covered in Amazon’s Dual Screen Kindle patent

The following sections might as well be describing the Nook –  

1. Around Claim 42 the patent starts talking of an eInk display and a second LCD display next to the eInk display.
2. The LCD display would have surface area smaller than the eInk screen.
3. LCD display would have faster refresh rate.
4. LCD is touch-sensitive and responsive to touch input.
5. The two screens are a single structural element.
6. The LCD display is rectangular and less than half the size of the eInk screen.
7. It specifically covers the LCD display being placed below the eInk display (in addition to next to it).
8. It covers the second display being organic LED, TFT, or LCD.
9. It mentions that the touch-screen of the second display could be usable by fingers, stylus, or pointing device.

Basically, Amazon must have been considering other options and covered them in their patent. Now that the patent has been awarded to them they basically have a patent over the Nook’s design. B&N are in a lot of trouble.

There’s very little doubt about it – The Dual Screen Kindle Patent covers the Nook. It specifically mentions the second display might be LCD, might be touch sensitive, might be below the eInk screen, and might be used to drive the eInk display.

Strengthening Amazon’s case is that they have included the design of the Kindle 1 as just ‘one exemplary implementation’.

The Dual Screen Kindle Patent clearly covers a second LCD screen

Here are some more sections from the Patent covering the second screen -

The second display 108 of the dual display system is a narrow screen located adjacent to the content display 106.

The narrow display 108 is illustrated as being positioned to the right of the content display 106, although it may be located elsewhere in the housing 102 in other implementations.

The narrow display screen 108 may be responsive to user input registered via, for example, a finger, a stylus, or other similar pointing device.

Additionally, the narrow display screen 108 may enable presentation of graphic elements that correspond to content displayed in the content display 106. These graphic elements may be selected by the user in order to select the corresponding content in the display 106, as described further below.

Some exemplary displays that may be used with the implementations of the narrow display include organic LEDs, TFT, and PN LCD.

That’s exactly what the Nook’s LCD display is – It’s adjacent to the eInk screen, it uses a finger, and it enables the presentation of elements on the eInk screen. There’s more -

The narrow display screen 108 provides many diverse functions. For instance, it may present a form of user interface that enables the user to command the device to turn pages of text, scroll up or down pages of text, zoom in or zoom out, navigate to other locations in the book, or the like.

That covers the Nook’s LCD screen perfectly. The patent goes on and covers almost every possible angle -

 In other implementations, the narrow display 108 may be wider or have different ratios of height and width.

… the narrow display 108 may be positioned in other relationships to the content display 106 … may be above, below, or on either side of the content display 106.

 The narrow display 108 may be implemented using, for example, LCD technology.

The narrow display 108 may further be responsive to user input, whereas the content display 106 may not be responsive to user input. For instance, the narrow display 108 may be implemented with touch-sensitive technology …

The Patent even refers to the dual displays as control display and content display.

B&N is in a world of trouble

B&N has already had a law-suit filed against it by the makers of the Alex eReader for stealing their design. That case probably has little legal standing (at least based on what we know) and is unlikely to succeed. Amazon’s dual screen eReader patent is a completely different proposition – it’s a patent that has already been granted.

Amazon, if they so wish, can easily stop B&N from selling the Nook. At least, it seems that way from the patent.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Amazon started charging B&N a license fee or managed to get a Kindle App on the Nook or filed a case to stop Nook sales totally. Take a look at the patent – it covers the Nook perfectly. It could be that Amazon originally considered the Nook design for the Kindle and then decided to go with the Kindle 1 design instead. It covers the Nook so perfectly that it almost seems Amazon wrote the patent after taking a look at the Nook (unlikely given that the Patent was filed in 2006).

It’s a little sad to think that Kindle vs Nook might be ended by a patent filed in 2006.

Filed under: kindle Tagged: | dual screen ereader, dual screen Kindle, kindle vs nook