POD Fight Just Beginning?
by Calvin Reid and Steven Zeitchik, PW NewsLine -- Publishers Weekly, 3/8/2004
Ingram said Thursday it will appeal a ruling this week that essentially made much of POD subservient to an obscure Missouri technology company.
Keel Hunt, a spokesperson for Ingram, used the word disappointing to describe a ruling which, if upheld, could award $15 million to the patent-holder out of the coffers of Ingram, Ingram's Lightning and Amazon and necessitate a small royalty for every book produced using POD. "We disagree. We will appeal and we expect to prevail," Hunt said.
The patent, held by the late engineer Harvey Ross for the On Demand Machine Corp, comes for a device that can digitally store a copy of the text and print one copy or more when the books were purchased. Despite some experts' belief--including former B&N POD guru Ken Brooks--that the patent applied to a type of in-store machine, the jury interpreted it broadly to include a storage system, including those used by Lightning and, by extension, clients like Amazon. (Brooks was an Ingram witness and described himself as "very surprised" by the ruling. Many in publishing, including this magazine, were surprised too; details of the long-running suit were scarce.)
Despite the shock, the underdog victor was low-key today; even with the jury's verdict, a judge must find the ruling willful before any damages are required. "There is much more to come before there is a final verdict," said Bruce Baebler, president of On Demand, but said the ruling was vindication nonetheless. "We've had many disagreements with Lightning Source since they started operations."
The upshot? If it stands, POD's relative efficiency could be undermined, because a lot of small fees could add up to substantial costs for Ingram, which could in turn be passed on to publisher clients and jack up prices for the tool small presses count on. Then again, experts say, CD's and much of modern media actually require such payments and do not get in the way of business. Says Brooks: "It will take a while to sort out all the ramifications."
