A Patent for Books On Demand? An Inside Look at ODMC versus Lightning Source, Amazon & Ingram

Who would have thought that a patent with the innocuous title System and method of manufacturing a single book copy could become a heavy hammer hanging over the print-on-demand industry and all its practitioners?

On March 3, a small Missouri company, On Demand Machine Corporation (ODMC), which never actually brought the system in question to market, won a $15 million suit against Amazon, Ingram, and Lightning Source for patent infringement regarding print-on-demand of books ( More Information).

I called the two companies referenced in four of the five news articles posted on the ODMC website (the fifth is the announcement of the patent infringement award) and spoke to Joyce Meskis, owner of Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore, and Tom Messer, of Eakins Press, Austin Texas. I wanted to find out exactly how these folks are using the BookMachine System covered by the patent.

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