Discovery Communications is suing Amazon.com for patent infringement, alleging that Amazon's Kindle electronic book readers employ its technology. Discovery, which produces the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, is seeking an unspecified amount of compensation in the case.

Here's an excerpt from Discovery's statement on the lawsuit:

Discovery Communications and John S. Hendricks were significant players in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990's. Hendricks' work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books.

Joseph A. LaSala, Jr., General Counsel of Discovery Communications, said: "The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems.  We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation.  Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly.  Our tradition as an inventive company has produced considerable intellectual property assets for our shareholders, and today's infringement litigation is part of our effort to protect and defend those assets."

John Hendricks is Discovery's founder and chairman, who created Discovery Channel in 1985.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said the company had no comment.

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware (pdf, 102 pages), Discovery does not want to halt Kindle sales, but is instead seeking a combination of damages, future royalties, and legal fees. The Discovery patent in question dates back to 2007 and is called "Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System," according to the lawsuit.

Discovery spokeswoman Michelle Russo was not immediately available for comment.

Discovery  Communications, a publicly traded media company, owns more than a hundred TV networks worldwide and the website HowStuffWorks.com, according to its website. But it has not been a player in the electronic book industry. It was not immediately clear if Discovery believes any of the other electronic readers on the market today infringe on its patent.

This is Amazon's second major scuffle over Kindle technology. The Authors Guild earlier took issue with the Kindle 2's text-to-voice feature, which reads electronic books aloud, saying it threatened to eat into the market for audio books without compensating authors and publishers. Amazon later did a partial back-down, allowing authors and publishers to decide themselves whether to active the text-to-voice feature on e-book titles.