Discovery, which also owns Animal Planet and TLC, said the e-book copyright protection used by Amazon had been developed by its founder John Hendricks as part of his work in the 1990s on the delivery of digital content. The patent was registered in November 2007.
In the lawsuit, filed yesterday in a US district court in Delaware, Discovery accuses Amazon of infringing the patent in both versions of the Kindle as well as in its services related to the device, including the sale of electronic books.
Discovery is seeking "fair compensation" through damages, royalties and legal fees but is not aiming to stop Amazon from selling the Kindle.
It is the second time in recent weeks that Amazon's Kindle reader has been involved in controversy. In February the Author's Guild told its members that Amazon might be undermining authors' rights to the audio market for their books due to Kindle 2's audio feature that can read books aloud.
Amazon bowed to demands by authors and said it would allow the audio function to be disabled, though it asserted the feature was legal.
Amazon has also launched software allowing the iPhone and iPod Touch to read books available for Kindle 2.
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