Amazon Wins Patent on Reselling, Lending Used Digital Goods

E-books may be cheaper than paperbacks. But you can’t resell them. Amazon has enabled e-book lending already. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could sell your digital products. Amazon has won a patent on reselling and lending digital goods. That might suggest that people may be able to sell or trade movies, apps, and other digital goods.

An electronic marketplace for used digital objects is disclosed. Digital objects including e-books, audio, video, computer applications, etc., purchased from an original vendor by a user are stored in a user’s personalized data store. Content in a personalized data store may be accessible to the user via transfer such as moving, streaming, or download. When the user no longer desires to retain the right to access the now-used digital content, the user may move the used digital content to another user’s personalized data store when permissible and the used digital content is deleted from the originating user’s personalized data store. When a digital object exceeds a threshold number of moves or downloads, the ability to move may be deemed impermissible and suspended or terminated,

the patent application suggests. For now, it seems logical that Amazon will put this approach to use with e-books. Pulling this off for other digital goods is going to prove more challenging.