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

  • From: "Meehan, John" <JMeehan@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:55:20 -0400

Want a laugh over the weekend? Check out this link..

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/crazy.html

I've heard that #6368227 - "Method of swinging on a swing" was filed
before the dot-com crash by a lawyer & his young son, to show him how to
file, and that the system is really broken.

It was around the same time that Amazon was awarded the "1-click
ordering" patent.

John Meehan
JVC


-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Tom Barry
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 4:43 PM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Is TiVo the bully of DVR design?

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.

Can anyone imagine a workable system?

- Tom

Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
> Amazing unfolding of events. The courts have affirmed their previous
> decision that copy-while-playing-back is a TiVo exclusive feature and
> not something every DVR can be expected to offer. And the Hollywood
> studios continue to oppose the idea of a virtual DVR in the cable
> network.
> 
> Makes it look like TiVo is the only DVR game in town. And none of this
> hinges on vague arguments about GUI or EPG or other such TiVo
> cleverness.
> 
> Bert
> 
> ---------------------------------------- 
> http://www.digitaltvdesignline.com/howto/settopboxdesign/192204952
> 
> August 24, 2006
> 
> Is TiVo the bully of DVR design?
> 
> By Cliff Roth
> 
> For digital video recorder designers Friday August 18 may go down in
> history as a dark day. A U.S. Circuit Court judge in East Texas upheld
> an April jury decision that EchoStar, parent of the popular Dish
> satellite-TV service, had violated patents awarded to TiVo in their
DVR
> set top boxes.  At issue was not TiVo's clever user interface (by
> contrast EchoStar's is quite clunky) or anything else that most
> designers would think of as TiVo-specific. Rather, it was something
much
> broader, more basic, and what most engineers would probably consider
> rather essential to the proper functioning of any DVR: the ability to
> simultaneously record and play--that is, writing to the hard drive
while
> reading from the same drive.
> 
> The jury awarded TiVo some $89 million in damages, although they said
> EchoStar acted in good faith when designing their set top boxes. An
> initial order to immediately de-activate some four million EchoStar
DVR
> boxes was delayed, pending an appeal.
> 
> If the jury's decision continues to be upheld, the effects for set top
> box industry can be devastated. A patent-holder is under no obligation
> to license their intellectual property, and TiVo can ultimately
require
> that not just EchoStar, but also DirecTV, Scientific Atlanta,
Motorola,
> Pioneer, and every other manufacturer and service provider for
cable-TV
> and satellite-TV boxes will have to recall their products or disable
the
> ability to play and record simultaneously. Or switch to TiVo branded
> service.
> 
> If that happens, TiVo would have a virtual monopoly on the DVR market.
> 
> It wouldn't be the first time that a single company essentially locked
> up a major aspect of interactive TV with aggressive patent litigation.
> That was precisely Gemstar's strategy, with the electronic program
guide
> (EPG). Gemstar has claimed, through a variety of lawsuits, their
patents
> (purchased, incidentally, from the now-defunct StarSight) essentially
> cover the very idea of the EPG. A few years back, in fact, they sued
> TiVo, resulting in an out-of-court settlement. That settlement, of
> course, was not just monetary but insured that TV Guide (Gemstar's
EPG)
> would be a part of TiVo products.
> 
> Similarly, this is likely TiVo's ultimate plan: Rather than forcing
> EchoStar, DirecTV, Time Warner, Comcast and everyone else from
marketing
> set top boxes with built-in DVRs, they want all these companies to
> switch to TiVo's branded DVR service.
> 
> In the ten short years since DVRs first appeared on the market, we've
> already seen innovation stifled to the point where there's been
> practically nothing new for quite a while, other than upgrading to
HDTV.
> RePlay, the most innovative company in the field, following a
> Hollywood-backed lawsuit and bankruptcy ultimately stopped making set
> top boxes completely last December.
> 
> Now TiVo threatens to really put the nail in the coffin of any future
> DVR innovation. Isn't the ability to simultaneously record and play on
a
> hard disk really a generic capability of any DVR?
> 
> The U.S. patent office has issued several notorious patents over the
> past few years of comparable outrageousness -- the infamous Amazon
"one
> click ordering" patent comes to mind, as well as the one in the
> pre-Internet early 90s that gave Compton's a patent on the very
concept
> of hyper-linking and multimedia.
> 
> The entire set top box manufacturing industry should get behind
EchoStar
> and support their appeal. Fortunately, EchoStar has historically spent
> heavily on legal expenses (including another, unrelated current battle
> over transmission of distant signals.)
> 
> But with so much of this industry now based outside the U.S., and much
> of it in Asia beyond the reach of U.S. patent law, there's also the
> distinct possibility that this will play out globally as a local
story.
> Whether TiVo really has the muscle, legal or otherwise, to create a
> worldwide monopoly on DVRs is doubtful.
> 
> EchoStar says they're going back to the drawing boards to design a DVR
> disk drive system that doesn't violate TiVo's patent. Good luck to
them.
> If the patent could be interpreted as applying only to a certain
> technique for simultaneous record and playback, and not the broad
> concept, then perhaps the chilling effect on the set top box industry
> won't be so severe. But note that when TiVo was first introduced, back
> around 1997, they explained that they had designed their split-screen
> EPG specifically to work around Gemstar's patents. It hardly prevented
> Gemstar's suit.
> 
> Meanwhile, there's another highly contentious technology that some
> cable-TV companies have just recently introduced which might offer a
> true alternative: network DVR service, in which the hard drives are
> located not in the customer's set top box, but in big servers at the
> cable system's head end. Just one problem with this approach:
Hollywood
> has already started filing lawsuits.
> 
> DVRs are clearly a very litigious product category. Watch out.
> 
> All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights
> reserved
>  
>  
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-- 
Tom Barry                           trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx 
Now seeking new full time position as video software developer
Find my resume and video filters at www.trbarry.com
 
 
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