Amazon.com has filed for a couple of patents that imply that there will be books supported by advertising available for download.  The e-books that have advertising built in would be free or discounted.

The advertising patent that was filed earlier this month was entitled “Incorporating Advertising In On-Demand Generated Content.”  The other advertising patent was called “On-Demand Generating E-Book Content With Advertising.”

Amazon.com subsidiary Amazon Technologies filed for a patent called “Method and system for access to electronic version of a physical work based on user ownership of the physical work” back in December 2006.  The patent was approved last month.  This allows buyers of a physical book to receive an e-book bundle.

One of the reasons why consumers may be resistant to purchasing a Kindle is the price-per-book cost on top of the already high price of the Kindle.  Having books available for free may encourage more people to buy the Kindle.

[via CNET]