[opendtv] Re: Is TiVo the bully of DVR design?

John McClenny wrote:

> Simple solution is to license Tivo's patent.  It can be
> licensed at terms that are way more reasonable than, say,
> MPEG-LA H.264 patents.

Tom Barry wrote:

> I really don't know what to do about our silly unworkable
> patent system. I suppose I'm lucky it is not my problem
> to solve.
>
> Some inventions are just inevitable due to the availability
> of other emerging technology. It is still nice to reward
> those who notice them first but giving a monopoly to the
> first person making it to the market or the patent office
> can't really do much to further the common good.
>
> There should be some way to incentivize practical new ideas
> without otherwise crippling the march of those ideas by
> giving them to lawyers.

In this particular case, I think maybe the problem was the juries. When
this was brought to trial, the juries should have corrected the
aberration.

I don't think that "other patents are even stupider" is perhaps the best
approach. Seems kind of defeatist? But as juries become more savvy about
PC-related technologies, maybe this sort of mistake won't be repeated.

It should be common knowledge that hard disk drives can read/write
from/to different blocks, using memory to make the process look
simultaneous. So it should be understood by juries that when someone
mates a HDD to a TV recording device, that's what he's after. So if
anything, royalties should be paid to whoever invented the HDD. Not to
TiVo, who merely adopted that invention.

I think there are now some DVDRs that can also achieve this
"simultaneous" read/write capability. I suppose the fact that they
aren't considered DVRs will make them immune to this TiVo lawsuit? Does
kind of make you laugh.

Bert
 
 
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