Patent 7849393 was granted and assigned to Discovery Communications (company) on December, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An electronic book selection and delivery system distributes text to subscribers. The system includes the ability to use electronic links as well as a system for creating electronic links between specific electronic books and other electronic files. The links may be used or accessed by a menu system or by operation of a cursor and a select button. The other electronic files could be portions of a specific electronic book, such as a Table of Contents. The other electronic files could also exist external to a specific electronic book. For example, definitions provided in an electronic English-language dictionary could be linked to terms contained in an electronic book. The electronic links may be created by the book publisher or may be subscriber-defined. The links may use standard programming language such as hypertext markup language (HTML). The links may be established through use of a relational database.