As Kindle DX Arrives, Amazon Snags Design Patent

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Lost amid those headlines, however, was another small Amazon win this week. The day before the Kindle DX was officially unveiled, Amazon won a design patent for Kindle, which, while apparently not covering any specific technology, does give Amazon a patent on the appearance of the Kindle itself.

The patent, D591,741, "Electronic media reader," was awarded to Symon J. Whitehorn and Gregg E. Zehr of Amazon Technologies Inc., according to its listing in the United States Patent Office. The patent was originally filed March 29, 2006, and was officially awarded on May 5, 2009. The claim describes the "ornamental design for an electronic media reader, as shown and described," likely referring to the Kindle's sleek form.

It's a minor and pretty routine thing to do, but the patent is yet another in a series of small moves that will help Amazon consolidate control of the e-reading market in its favor.

While Amazon's Kindle DX supports Adobe PDF, for example, it still doesn't support EPUB, the Open eBook Standard format established in 2008 by the International Digital Publishing Forum. Amazon's purchase last week of Lexcycle, the company that makes the popular Stanza e-reading application for Apple's iPhone, is another consolidation move, considering Stanza supports EPUB and a galaxy of other e-reading formats. Stanza users worldwide number 1.3 million at present.

As e-reading analysts have been telling Channelweb.com all week, Amazon seems to sense that it will face greater and more sophisticated competition now that the Kindle is an established brand.

Along with Amazon, one of the companies to have a big win in public relations buzz this week -- at least where e-reading is concerned -- is Apple. Speculation that Apple is working on a multipurpose tablet designed for everything from e-reading to mobile computing has reached critical mass, and now that virtually every tech blogger writing about Kindle DX has seen fit to mention the Apple speculation, Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June is generating that much more buzz.

What will Amazon do next? What other moves does it need to make to ensure it stays at the top of the e-reading pile? Leave a comment below, and tell us what you think.