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Patents

TiVo Sued for Patent Infringement 142

Posted by Hemos from the donca-love-the-courts dept.
IQ had the first notice that TiVo, the Linux-friendly digital video recorder folks have been sued for patent infringement. Gemstar International Group Ltd. (StarSight Telecast Inc.) has filed a patent infringement suit against TiVo in a Califorinia court. They are alleging TiVo "willfully infringed certain Gemstar intellectual property by virtue of TiVo's deployment, marketing, offers to sell and sale of personalized video recorder devices containing an unlicensed interactive program guide."
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TiVo Sued for Patent Infringement More

TiVo Sued for Patent Infringement

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  • Need for Patents (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Can somebody give any good reason in defense of the patent system?

    Let's talk about typical excuses for keeping the patent.

    Excuse (1) : It rewards the innovators and thus encourages innovation.

    Answer:

    Scientific discoveries have been done and will be done without any
    patent system. Patenting slows down freedom of utilzing the fruits
    those discoveries.

    Innovation and inventions like TCP/IP, WWW, HTML, XML would have been
    far less successful they were patented. Internet as we know today
    would not have existed and there would have been BBSes operated by AOL
    and Microsoft.

    So, the patent system serves the purpose of creating new monopolies or
    entrenching the current ones. Patents just raise barriers to entry for
    new smaller innovative players to the market. That's why established
    big market players love the patent system and they patent everything
    that comes to mind. Patents are used as tools to reduce competition
    and thus hinders innovation.


    Excuse (2) : The inventors need to eat too and recoup the cost.

    Answer:

    Then let the inventor keep his/her technology a trade secret. If that
    technology is really that non-obvious, then he would get a significant
    headstart in the market before the competitors can reverse-engineer it
    or come up with their own competitive invention. Keep/make
    reverse-engineering legal but keep stealing trade-secret illegal.



  • My Satellite Pay TV operator in Australia (Austar)
    has this on screen TV guide built in, has done
    for ages...
    The really cool thing is that I can not only
    browse what is on the current channel, I can
    check what's on other channels, while I am
    watching my show, and what's on next, plus it
    has a full screen tv guide, info on the
    movie/show (blurb), only about 32 chans all
    up, but damn good stuff :)
    Anyway, this is really a silly patent, what
    about if I am watching TV on my PC, via the
    net, and I have a pretty web page telling me
    what's on, is that an infringement too?
  • Isn't this data that's broadcast in the VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval - the time it takes for the beam to zip back up to the top of the screen)?

    I don't think so. It might contain an identifier that allows you to pull this information out of a database, but the information itself isn't in the VBI.

    Can you really broadcast something over the public airwaves, and then prevent other people from monitoring & displaying it?

    Actually, with the way the Patent Office has been issuing patents, it wouldn't surprise me. I'm just waiting for my patent on the wheel to be approved before I begin using Microsoft over sticking them in mice without my permission...

    --

  • s/using/suing/

    --

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Mawbid ( 3993 )
    TiVO is illegal to export? Why?
    --
  • Today must be Revenge of the Patents day. Wow. Maybe it's related to that blood-red moon we're getting tonight....
  • >I wish those slashdotters out there who think
    >that patents are not all bad would just give it up.

    engage flamers, 1/2 power
    Ok, moron, economics 101 is in session.
    Companies exist to make money. They do this by selling new, innovative products. Innovation costs money. If somebody else can copy that product as soon as it goes to market, they can sell their version at a lower price, because the copy cost far less to develop than the original. The consumers seek the lowest price for the product so they buy the immitation. The innovating company makes no money, and promptly goes bankrupt. Other companies see this, and decide that innovation is too risky. Technological progress halts.

    The way to avoid this downward spiral is to grant companies patents on new and innovative products, to allow them to recoup their R&D costs. Patents should be granted for products not for ideas. That is the problem with patents right now; companies are patenting ideas, and obvious ones at that. (iirc, atari holds a patent on XOR'ing pixel values) Reform is necessary, but abolition of patents would be just plain stupid.
    Class dismissed
    stop flamers, secure from flaming
  • flamers to full power
    Ok, dumbass. What I said was that Intel would have no incentive to spend money on making a faster processor if AMD was just going to crack open the chip and make their own die from it. AMD has to spend it's own millions to reverse-engineer the chip, which puts the two companies on an even footing.

    >that's like saying Safeway has no incentive to
    >sell oranges because Smiths can
    No, it's like saying Safeway has no incentive to pay millions to invent a new fruit if smith's can just copy it cheaply and quickly.

    >Michael Angelo
    Who?
    Seriously, though.. Michaelangelo is a piss poor example because art isn't patentable, it's not a commodity.
    cease flamage
  • Atari held patents on hardware sprite collision detection. (XOR? Yes and no...) Considering that the 2600 shipped in 1977 with this technology, the patents have probably expired long ago...
    --

  • If their business model is all based on litigation and licensing, instead of sales to consumers, does PR matter?


    ---
  • Here in the United States the local TV cable company would set aside a TV channel that would brodcast a TV guide...
    This was in the late 1970s to early 1980s.. After the Channel F died and before I got my first Vic20 I use to record that channel to video tape when I was bord.
    I know this was like before 1979 becouse it was like at least a few years before I got my first computer in 1979...

    A very long time ago..... prior art?
    Now I wonder if those video tapes survived all thies years? I've probably recorded over all that nonsence by now anyway....
  • "Can't we all just get along!"


  • If we can't share the technology then I'd rather it were never invented. Eventually someone else would have thought of it.

    At least you recognise that it's the _implementation_ that is the hard work that should be remunerated. In the case of Gemsoft, their implementation enabled them to sell their patented idea. Now someone else has put in some of that "hard work", gemsoft can no longer sit on their asses sucking up free cash. They could always (shock horror) get off their asses and try to improve it like TiVo did?

    This is how competition works, and this is why it is good for the consumer. Ban patents (and stop the bloody US trying to pressurise Europeans into joining their *****d up patent system - WE DONT WANT IT).

  • D'oh!

    Believe me, that is not my intent... I was speaking from the view of the patent holders. (I and still feel rather dirty from it...) I'd love to see software patents obliterated. Or at least reduced to 6 month-1 year lifetimes.
  • This has been brought up several times as a reason why companies don't like to release their source code. Software patents are so screwed up that likely just about every piece of code out there infringes on someones patent. The system would collapse under it's own weight if most source code was open...
  • Forget the computer geek profession, I'm becomming a lawyer.

    "by virtue of .. deployment, marketing, offers to sell and sale of personalized vid...."

    Sounds like a bad lawsuit to me, because you simply cannot patent a type of marketing and sales, else get-rich-quick-ripoff schemes would not exist.


  • Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. How do you think he got there?

    It's a successful business plan, like it or not, so businesses are going to use it. The 'innovation' myth is long-gone, and nowadays we have only lawsuits and mergers for companies to increase their stock values.

    Sad (?) but true



    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • You say that as if it were a bad thing...
  • Ok, maybe I'm not getting this right but the Patent (5,701,383) for a "video time shifting device" pretty much describes a pc with a tv-input card. The patent says it preferably uses some digital medium to do the storing of the video. Now IANAL, but I don't think this patent would hold water in court as it's date is 1997 and tv-input cards have been around since at least 90. It seems to me that on a cursory inspection the other patents are at least as vague as to describe a whole computer(tivo) and in being so vague they go beyond the scope of a patent. It's like having a patent on a method of locomotion with four supporting wheels and suing dodge for making a car.

  • Make that "every Best Buy in the states". TiVO is illegal to export, so we can't even get it here in Canada.

  • (Score:1)

    by tim_m ( 27065 )
    It's gotten to the point where one company can't have a good idea without someone else claiming they thought of it first and then go around suing them. These infringement laws really disturb me....
  • (From information I gleaned from a previous job).

    Gemstar patented the program guide quite a while ago (VCR+ - late '80s?). They have complete control over assigning the VCR+ control numbers listed in TV Guide and broadcast to your TV. Their patents are actually broader than just the "program guide" concept, and, yes, it is *very* profitable for them.

    TiVo probably does infringe on the patents - they are not narrowly-focused. And Gemstar will probably soak them for a good bit of change, unless TiVo has an ace up their sleeve.

    Gemstar is not a late-comer to the market, and at the time VCR+ *was* an innovation (consider some of the other patents listed in this arena in comparison). I hate the patent system, too, but depending on the "infringement", Gemstar probably has TiVo by the short hairs.

    I wonder if we need to shorten the lifetime of a patent... In this world, a 17?-year patent is forever. In defense of the system, though, remember: the assembly line in retrospect is something just about anyone could have come up with - a simple business model which had immense impact.
  • Are they just trying to cash in on TIVO's success?

  • I believe GemStar (the VCR+ people -- they also own TVGuide) have the patent on interactive program guides.
  • Do you have any idea what kind of licencing fees Gemstar look to collect for this patent? Tivo's stock is *way* down today based on this news, and it looks like a massive overreaction to me. I've even got to wonder if they couldn't successfully get the patent overturned on the grounds of being obvious. I know Scientific Atlanta are fighting Gemstar on this too
  • I'm pretty sure Germstar bought TV Guide recently.
  • to the GermStar buys TV Guide story.

    http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/991004/ca_gemstar_2.html
  • GemStar (aka Starsight) has a reputation for suing everyone, including most of their customers. They do TV program guides for settop boxes. I think their patents include things like selecting a program and clicking on it to change the channel to the program, and storing the data locally (i.e. in the settop). Pretty advanced stuff, huh?
  • How about some more info?
  • Either you're making a bad joke, or you have no clue. This is about patent licensing, not software licensing per se.
  • The VideoGuide even offered some functions that worked without the subscription, such as the universal remote. When they shut it down, they started sending "poison packets" to the receivers that rendered them completely non-functional.

    Interesting. I never sent mine back (I thought it was too cool to part with, even if I couldn't use it) - I bet if I unscrewed the antenna it would immune to the poison packets. I'll have to fire it up and see what happens.

  • > No, it's like saying Safeway has no incentive to pay millions to invent a new fruit if smith's can just copy it cheaply and quickly. Exactly. In this example, Safeway would spend millions of dollars in R&D, and Smith's could open up competition by copying Safeway's method. Smith's would have unfairly profited from Safeway's investment, while Safeway would most likely lose big money. The only way Safeway could protect their investment dollars (and prevent Smith's from running them out of business) would be to invest more time, effort, and dollars into keeping their fruit process a secret. Businesses recognize this. Without some measure of protection for their development dollars, it would be far more lucrative to steal someone else's work, or keep it trade secret. Sure, there'd still be innovation. Most of it would remain in-house, trade secret stuff.
  • Is this the same lame patent that requires my digital cable box to come up to channel 1 two hours into the future?

    It used to work correctly (come up to the channel you're on at the current time), but they were forced to change it because they didn't have this "technology" licensed.

    bleh

  • CES (Score:1)

    by birder ( 61402 )
    This year's CES in Las Vegas had a lot of major players with TiVO integration. Should be interesting to see if any help TiVO and strong arm the other's lawyers.
  • Some UK VCR's have the ability to use the teletext tv listings to start/stop recording, they either just let you select the prog you want and then set the rec times or the let you select it and the monitor that page for any changes to the scheduled time. Sound familar ? This is all out of date now that we have Video Plus and PDC ( programme delivery control ).

  • are you serious? my cable (atlanta mediaone analog) does exactly the same thing. if this is due to some patent bullshit I am going to make some pretty pissed off phonecalls to whomever is responsible.
  • Prior use buddy. I've been shooting lawyers since waaaay back. I'll see you in court pal. That is, if I can find some intact lawyers around here. Seems there all dead....
  • Nope. Check out Tivo's Privacy Promise [tivo.com] for more info. 3 bullet points that basically say that no one outside your home (not even Tivo) will know your personal viewing info. They do collect 'anonymous' info (at the zip code level, no more specific IIRC), but you can request that they not include you in that data by calling a toll-free number.
  • I watched TiVo's infomercial the other night. It appears that you need to TiVo connected to phone line to download program schudule in offhours.

    My question is, is TiVo also uploading your TV viewing pattern to its database?

    I just think it's too tempting an idea for them to miss it.
  • Please, please tell me this is a prank. They actually have a patent on an interactive programming guide?

    Okay, lemme see if I understand this right:

    Company gets patent on obvious idea. Competitor company used similar idea in an obvious fashion--since no one smart enough to find their ass with both hands would otherwise believe such a patent was granted, they obviously don't check for one. Company uses patent to sue the competitor--not to protect their IP, but to stifle competition.

    This is exactly the same as the Amazon/Barnes&Noble lawsuit, only even more idiotic. I have half a mind to move to Mars. Or, even better, Mir ;)

  • Gemstar is a crappy company. They want $10 an incident for tech support where the VCR+ is concerned. It really is quite ridiculous. For them to go patent this technology and slam other companies for coming up with similar stuff is ludicrous - obviously they can't find any better way to make money.
  • This is the second post I've seen like this today. I realize everyone and there Mom wanted Slashdot to put the submitted stories up so that everyone could *vote* on them, but this is ridiculous. If you don't want to read Slashdot for your news, go somewhere else. If Hemos and CmdrTco no longer do it for you, go to ZDNet [zdnet.com] or the NY Times [nytimes.com]. Post relevant shit if you're going to spend the time to post at all, not news I could give a flying fsck about. That's why God gave you a "Back" button...
  • I would bet he'd kick an ass or two
  • And what if we discover today that Microsoft was granted the patents for all religious text, - The Quran, The Bible, The Torah, you name it... Boy wouldn't that wreak havoc.

    Or, Von Neumann emerges from the grave and claims a patent for a computing model consisting of processor, memory, etc. And he insists he rightfully owns the rights to all computing architectures, equipment, technologies, etc.

    Or, that Celera Genomics found the entire human DNA sequence and they were "rightfully" granted the patent, hence therefore, we are know all licensed properties of Celera Genomics!

    Cursed Bloody Red Moon!!!

  • Wake up you little bastards and realize that you just shot your PR department in the foot for doing something this stupid
  • I don't know the lawsuit which you're referring to, but Atari indeed had a patent on "sprites" using the XOR technique if I remember correctly.

  • Goddamn! Is there going to be any news today that _doesn't_ involve someone suing over patent doodoo???

  • Why two hours?

    That seems pretty arbitrary. Why not 1 second or some amount of time that wouldn't impace the user.

    It sounds like the 2 hour thing is exploiting some loophole (or at least trying to).
  • Is it really possile to hold a patent on the program guide? I have seen several different versions of this software, in all sorts of set top boxes. I wasn't aware that it was intellectual property. TV Guide should be suing all of these people, because they had the "idea" to list what was on TV first.
  • Or did they quietly give Gemstar their blood money?
  • Considering that Philips is a big player in TiVO I doubt there will be a chance of injunction. Maybe in 5-10 years they might get some money over it.

    My question is why isn't replay being sued too? The technology is pretty much the same.
  • Sounds like a bad lawsuit to me, because you simply cannot patent a type of marketing and sales, else get-rich-quick-ripoff schemes would not exist.

    To get rich quickly, I'd just patent the "get-rich-quick-ripoff" schemes. Then I'd sue anyone posting these to my favourite newsgroups... eliminate a subset of the spam, and get money in the process...

    Of course, this is assuming:

    1. Marketing techniques could be patented (or else under some sort of intellectual property law)
    2. I were a low-life bastard who sues people over pointless patents

    Chris "Bob" Odorjan

  • The point of the lawsuit seems to be that the marketing and deployment of the TiVo unit used "Plumbing" similar or ripped off from the patent holder. I doubt that the plumbing is the same. I beleive that TV Guide did copyright or whatever the way they list their shows in the magazine. Too bad they didn't do it with channel on the left and time across the top, the way they do it now is way to hard to read.
  • GemStar owns TV Guide?

    I dont think thats correct. Last I knew TV Guide was owned by Rupert Murdocks' Newscorps subsidiary.

  • Gemstar from what I understand owns almost all the patents on EPG's. Their patents are very hard to get around and there have been many attempts but most companies just end up licensing their EPG. By the way they make alot of their money off of law suits and licensing.

  • Re:Patents (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have a VCR with StarSight that I bought years ago, it was awesome then, before Interactive cable boxes and TiVo existed. Now, I Plan not to renew my StarSight subscription because TiVo will give me the same functionality. One of the nice things about StarSight is that they send the program information through the overscan area on PBS, and pay PBS for the ability to do that, so by subcribing to StarSight I was also supporting my favorite show, like Red Dwarf. The bottom line is that TiVo will take money from StarSight, because they use an idea that GemStar implemented first. So GemStar is entitled to compensation. Tivo also needs a phone line hookup... and what did everyone hate about DIVX?

  • Those Bastards! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder what Brian Boitano would do?
  • Except in this case, the source that TiVo has been forced to release under the GPL isn't related to the Gemstar lawsuit.

    Gemstar is interested in the method, rather than any specific implimentation (in this case, at least).

    ...j
    (IANAL, etc)
  • They paid $9.2 billion for them in October. So I don't think that lawsuit is being filed anytime soon.

    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-2 00-806223.html [cnet.com]
  • Let's review real quick, and see which handy obvious things have been patented (thank god they expire after 17 years, otherwise there would be no such thing as a free UNIX!)...


    the pixel,the character generator, sprites...
    ...on-screen programming, program guides...

    What's next? (quick, patent it!)

    How about "a method whereby animated characters interactively provide on-screen programming and program guides, comprising a character generator, animated sprites using the XOR method, an intelligent agent searching interface, local storage of programming information that can be retrieved from an on-demand network of"... blah, blah, blah.

    Sure, it's just MS-Bob+TV-Guide, but... patent it, quick, so you can *sue* them when they try to do it, and *counter-sue* them if they try to sue you!

    Patent, patent, gotta patent all, gotta patent'em all...I hate patents!
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Seems like you can't do that anymore. You try to build a better one, only to be sued by some corporation you've never heard of that has a patent on "Method of detaining rodents by eliminating their ability to depart the immediate vicinity of the trap mechanism," as well as "Method of terminating rodents by relieving them of their lives."

  • Have your program guides GPLed! Then the lawsuit collapses, as it specifically covers -unlicenced- program guides. It nowhere states that they have to be licenced by anyone in particular.
  • I had a look at Gemstar's patent list, and it includes this beauty: Apparatus and methods for using compressed codes for monitoring television program viewing [164.195.100.11].

    I knew this had probably been done, but I never really gave it much thought. How scary; your Gemstar-licensed set-top box can report your specific, comprehensive viewing habits, not just pay-per-view or other targeted bits. Probably feeds right into Experian's marketing database and has Ron Popeil merchandise delivered to your door if you linger too long on his infomercials.

    But on the bright side, all this patent madness encourages a more healthy lifestyle. How? There are almost a dozen CRTs in my house. Only one does not have a keyboard in front of it, and it doesn't get turned on much. And I cancelled cable service a while back because (a) 99% of all video content is rehashed, unoriginal, uninteresting, unartistic crap, and (b) I won't support an industry that wants to insinuate itself as a controlling influence in my life. It doesn't take a patented monitoring or menu system to tell that my cable connection is permanently off. If I want to watch something on the SciFi channel, I have to (*gasp*) leave the house, (*akk!!*) expose myself to sunshine, and (no!!!) socialize with friends. J
  • System and method for displaying program listings in an interactive electronic program guide: Self explaining.

    Isn't this data that's broadcast in the VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval - the time it takes for the beam to zip back up to the top of the screen)? Can you really broadcast something over the public airwaves, and then prevent other people from monitoring & displaying it? I hope not...
    ----
  • The normal transmission medium, however, is not where Tivo gets its program guide. The program guide gets downloaded via modem every three days or so along with the "Tivolution" digital magazine, software upgrades, and the like. The best part of this case is that even if the Tivo people have to change the device's operation somewhat to sidestep a bunch of bunk patents, they can!
  • This isn't the only thing Gemstar's done recently that should concern us.

    Gemstar also just bought NuvoMedia [nuvomedia.com], the makers of the Rocket eBook platform.

    I wonder if they'll be suing Peanut Press [peanutpress.com] next for using an encrypted method of delivering electronic literature?
  • There was more to the anti-DIVX movement (which thankfully won) than a "phone-line" hook-up. DIVX Central knew which movies you were watching and when.

    The phone line on TiVo is only for receiving the guide information. Nothing is passed back to TiVo Central. Any "Season Pass" and "Favorites" processing is done locally, so TiVo doesn't know about your habits.

    Besides, TiVo works independently of the programming source. If you use satellite because you can't get local programming (including PBS), sending overscan info over PBS is useless. Phone line transmission is really the only practical way to transfer the information.

    Finally, you had to have the phone line to make DIVX useful. If you didn't plan on using the DIVX functionality you would buy a DVD player, saving $100. With TiVo, you don't have to hook it up if you don't want. You lose season-pass and TV Guide, but the rest of the functionality is intact.

    The two situations are vastly different, IMHO.

  • For geeks?

    [Oh, never mind]
    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • ...is that any software patent infringement is obvious to anyone who cares to look for it, whereas in proprietary software it might take a lot of work to find a patent infringement.
  • You just stepped on my patent on
    "Method of relieving the world from lawyers by removal, destruction or perforation of parts of the physical body of previously mentioned lawyers"

    Sue! Sue! Sue!

    //rdj

  • Gemstar [gemstar.com] has been doing this kind of crap for years. They get the bulk of their revenue from patent licenses. Diva [divatv.com] and other video on demand companies (like Intertainer [intertainer.com]) have been trying to dance around Gemstar by using circular, pie-shaped menus instead of grids (Gemstar's patents cover pretty much anything with time on one axis and channels on another).

    Consumer electronics companies (like the one [sony.com] that I work for, at least for the next few days) have been trying to design around Gemstar for years as well, and so far have not been successful. Believe me, with how much Gemstar charges and how thin the margins are on VCRs, this means big money. CE manufacturers have spent lots of time and resources on this - even Diva and Intertainer and such, I think, are just on the hairy edge of Gemstar's domain.

    Of course, Gemstar's patents are ridiculously broad, and no sane patent system would consider their patents to be something that "a competent practitioner would not find obvious". So what you have here is the classic legal situation of "How much will it cost to make this problem go away?" Will it cost more to pay the lawyers or to pay off the settlement, license fees, what have you.

    Bleah.

    "He tells me some worlds 'as gots rats as large as folks!" - Nell

    "Yeah, they're called lawyers!" - Harry Fairfax.

  • Sounds like a bad lawsuit to me, because you simply cannot patent a type of marketing and sales, else get-rich-quick-ripoff schemes would not exist.

    Well apparently you can patent a type of marketing. That's what Amazon did and people here were really pissed off about that a few weeks ago. IIRC that patent pretty much amounted to the great marketing practice of writing down your customer's name and address so that they only have to tell you once.

    Overall I think that the idea of patents is a good thing. However patents should be distinguished from the current practices of patent law. The current state of patent law is not good at all.

    Around here we seem to have a real habit of bitching about the greed of corporations that is manifested through the the current miserable state of patent law. I hereby respectfully submit that the problem is not necessarily greed in and of itself (greed being a prime motivator in a capitalish economy, superceeded perhaps only by sloth) but that the system we have in place fails to properly channel that motivation into productive forms. What we should be discussing here is not how greedy corporations are but what kind of system would properly reward those (both individuals and corporations) who have new ideas.

  • Actually, the TV Guide arm of News Corp merged with United Video Satellite Group [tvguideinc.com] last March to form TV Guide Inc. TV Guide Inc. then merged with Gemstar [tvguideinc.com] in October. So you are somewhat correct that News Corp does still have some control.
  • The Gemstar
    If Gemstar does go after Peanut Press, I hope the judge sees the notable differences.
  • The patent covers server-retreived information and that available to the 'device' through normal transmission medium. It's really, really broad, and I have no doubts that if someone implemented a device that read VBI data for input to a program guide, it would fall under the scope of the patent. (Or Gemstar would treat it as infringing)
  • I don't know about that.. The gist of the patent implies simultaneous realtime record and delayed playback capability. Other than the 'Virtual VCR' software bundled with some MiroPCI TV tuners, non-destructive broadcast video editors, and of course the TiVo, I can't think of another product that fully matches the specification. Granted, the first two cases do not have the same primary use as the Gemstar patent or the TiVo, namely the consumer viewing market. You should read some of the other Gemstar/Nuvomedia patents. They're almost scary in scope.
  • When I become dictator, the first ones against the wall will be patent lawyers.*

    (* Putting patent lawyers against the wall under a dictatorial form of government is patent pending)
  • over which TiVo is being sued: Electronic Program Guides [164.195.100.11]

    BTW, I have patented a means of navigating through a printed document by including a synopsis of chapter headings collected in the initial pages of the document, with references to the page number upon which the chapter begins tabulated alongside the aforesaid headings. Interested parties should contact my counsel regarding licensing fees.
  • Sour Grapes. That is all this is.

    The company said the suit claims TiVo "willfully infringed certain Gemstar intellectual property by virtue of TiVo's deployment, marketing, offers to sell and sale of personalized video recorder devices containing an unlicensed interactive program guide."

    This is really nothing new. The concept has been areound for years, the plumbing is what took the effort. Fact is TiVo just beat them to market. So what's the current method for easing the corporate pain of losing? Sue the bastards!

    Only the lawyers win in the long run.

  • Mr. Nate,

    Here's the skinny.

    First off, the definition of a "Troll":

    1) A little nasty looking guy (or gal) that lives under a bridge and eats goats.
    2) A poster that submits comments that are purely an attempt to solicit a response, (Fishing for responses).
    3) The Slashdot bottom dwellers. First posters, humorus repeats, Natalie Portman, u 4r3 a k3wl hax0r and Naked and Petrified posts.

    Your post sir landed in the second area. Your comment was not the valid and on-topic post you claim, it was a troll for a response.

    Now all of us would like our posts commented upon, this fuels our egos and makes one feel accepted. It also doesn't hurt your karma rating. However the vast majority of posts are posts of topic, insight, some humor and most of all thought out opinion or content adding value to the thread. They are not just a prop to put signage on.

    In short, I would like to offer a couple of helpful hints. First, loose the spam signature, if a URL is included, thats generally ok, but any more is perceived as trollish. Second, add value, not just posts to be included. Try responding to active threads, try to avoid starting your own until you get more of a feel for /. moderation and culture. And finally, don't get discouraged. This place can be pretty rough sometimes, just read Katz's latest 3 articles on flames.

  • Here is some more information on previous Gemstar suits... http://www.sughrue.com/landfr/9812fr.html

  • Survey! How many "banned" items do you own? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 20, 2000 @10:43AM (#1353966)
    What items do you own that were legal when you bought them, but are illegal to buy now? Lessee... I have

    (1) a radio scanner that receives cellular.
    (2) A copy of Tetris for my NES (made by Tengen, *not* Nintendo).
    (3) An early Pioneer DVD player that can have region coding and macrovision disabled from the remote (not even any soldering required).
    (4) An LD of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with the Jessica panty scene still intact.
    (5) and 48-12oz cans (2 cases!)of R12 refrigerant for my car's A/C.
    (6) A pair of asbestos filled oven mitts.
    (7) And a $69 JVC camcorder. Bill Gates picked up the other $400 and I'm not currently subscribed to MSN.

    Woohoo! I'm going straight to hell now, eh?

  • Re:How can this possibly apply? (Score:3)

    by mosch ( 204 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @12:18PM (#1353967) Homepage
    Nope, it's correct. Gemstar has patented basically everything which is obviously neccessary for a useful program guide. Up to and including the idea of highlighting the current selected grid.

    Right now gemstar has a stranglehold on the cable industry with regards to program guides. it's evil, and i've been working with it for a bit. now it's more widely known to be evil. I so hope someday people realize that highlighting a grid with the time and program isn't really very clever or non-obvious.

  • Patent links (Score:3)

    by Jayson ( 2343 ) <jnordwick@gmaAAAil.com minus threevowels> on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:15AM (#1353968)
    The press release is very vague and if you do a search on StarSight (on everybodies favorite patent claim database) you get too many entires. So if you look for "schedule system" with "starsight" as the asignee, you get only 13. I'll list them here as they appear similar:

    This one appears interesting because it mentions recording more specifically than the rest:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05949954 __

    These three are for user interfaces:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05479268 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05479266 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05809204 __

    These two are for background schedule systems:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05808608 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05532754 __

    These are for systems with access controls:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05969748 __

    These are for a schedule information transmission:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05790198 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05619274 __

    These are just generic:

    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05727060 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05353121 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05959688 __
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05801787 __

  • TiVo == stealth Linux/PowerPC box (Score:3)

    by haaz ( 3346 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:07AM (#1353969) Homepage
    It's kind of annoying to hear about TiVo under fire -- they're probably the largest manufacturers of Linux/PowerPC hardware right now, not that anyone really knows that. I just love knowing that in every Best Buy in the world, there's a PPC box... makes me want a TiVo even more.

    I have no idea what this company is actually suing over, but I have this very protective streak when it comes to PPC-based products. ;)

  • Re:What ever happined to VideoGuide ? (Score:3)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @06:48PM (#1353970) Homepage Journal
    VideoGuide didn't go out of business, they were acquired by Gemstar and shut down. Gemstar also acquired at about the same time the main competitor to VideoGuide, which IIRC was called StarSight or some such. VideoGuide was far and away the superior product, but since it was a retail product vs. StarSight being something they licensed to OEMs, they shut down VideoGuide. But they obsoleted both in favor of their crummy TV Guide+.

    Some of us complained to the FTC about the fact that they bought both competitors in that market, but the FTC apparently didn't care.

    The VideoGuide even offered some functions that worked without the subscription, such as the universal remote. When they shut it down, they started sending "poison packets" to the receivers that rendered them completely non-functional. There was some talk of filing a class-action suit against Gemstar for remotely disabling a purchased product, but nothing ever came of it.

  • Re:Source patent? (Score:3)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @10:33AM (#1353971)
    I don't have the actual patent number, but my understanding is that Gemstar has a patent on the concept of a user-controlled on-screen channel grid. For instance, all DSS recievers have to pay these morons money under their patent, as do some of the newer TVs that have a guide built-in.

    What's really funny about this is that the on-screen channel guide is pretty much secondary to the TiVo's functionality - they AREN'T being sued over the actual hard-disc-recorder aspects.

  • prior art (Score:3)

    by jetson123 ( 13128 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @01:26PM (#1353972)
    I find most of the Gemstar patents mystifying. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that they are not obvious, European television has had on-screen television guides at least since the 80's in the form of the Teletex system, built into most midrange and upscale receivers (the information is transmitted in a few extra scanlines at the bottom, like CC in the US).

    Of course, I find many of the web patents equally mystifying. Again, there is ample prior art for the shopping card, e-commerce, and other web techniques in the Minitel system that has been used widely in Europe for many years before e-commerce started to be used in the US.

  • How can this possibly apply? (Score:3)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @12:02PM (#1353973) Homepage
    Reading the patent someone posted, it says TAPE. Tape. You know, magnetized plastic?

    In other words, I can't see how this patent can apply. Tivo is not recording the guide, or the programs, to a cassette tape. That's what the patent says.

    If you aren't doing what the patent describes, it can't *possibly* apply.

  • Re:Yes, they do (Score:3)

    by phantomlord ( 38815 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @01:21PM (#1353974) Journal
    For those that don't know and are jumping the gun blaming open source for this patent, their patents basically cover receiving a guide electronically, then rendering it on some piece of equipment

    How is this different than getting a table of links in HTML that will bring up info on what I select? You receive the HTML and tables electronically and then it is rendered by a browser to give literally identical functionality to their guide technology.

  • Thanks for your support! (Score:3)

    by Bullwinkle ( 45220 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @06:00PM (#1353975) Homepage
    Needless to say, I cannot comment on the legal aspects of this case, but I can tell you that TiVo is going to do business as usual, and has lawyers who handle this sort of thing.

    What I would most like to say is that we are thrilled with the general kind attitude towards TiVo on this forum. We consider the Linux community one of our our greatest assets.

    Cheers to all, and thanks again.
    Richard Bullwinkle
    TiVo Webmaster

  • Yes, they do (Score:3)

    by keefer ( 60778 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:00AM (#1353976) Homepage
    You are correct, it is nearly impossible to make a television guide these days and not have Gemstar put the smack down on you. However, one company recently did (where a friend of mine works), called Diva [divatv.com].

    For those that don't know and are jumping the gun blaming open source for this patent, their patents basically cover receiving a guide electronically, then rendering it on some piece of equipment, i.e. something the cable company has, your TiVo or ReplayTV box, etc. (I assume ReplayTV is a licensee.) Diva got around this by doing their own rendering and sending the guide as VIDEO. They probably have a patent on this, so I don't know what other course of action you have to transmit guides at this point.

    Basically, any schmoe could figure out that TiVo was patenting on Gemstar's technology. I doubt very much the guide rendering they do is the open source part anyway (I've not been following that).

  • Source patent? (Score:3)

    by Uller-RM ( 65231 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @10:29AM (#1353977) Homepage
    Does anyone know what exact patent is the basis for this lawsuit, since it wasn't mentioned in the news posting? According to the press release it sounds pretty shallow and all-encompassing.

    To be honest, it sounds like a revisit of the lawsuit against 3D Realms a few years back by somebody holding a patent on animated sprites moving on a computer screen. =P

  • Re:Gemstar: NuvoMedia's New Owners (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @04:51PM (#1353978) Homepage Journal
    Actually, the method Peanut Press is using appears to negate all the concerns I have over encrypted content: You can back up the book, back up the viewer, and you only need a key to unencrypt the book for viewing. If you lose the book, lose the key, etc, they're more than happy to give you a new one; They know who bought what. You can cut and paste from the viewer, so 'fair use' isn't trampled on, and they have viewers for all the platforms that their 'e-book' would be useful on. All in all, a class job. Their offering seems to be a little too sci-fi/business, but then only the truly nerdy/nouveau VC carry a palmtop these days, so I suppose it's called targeting.

  • Interactive Cheese (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 20, 2000 @10:47AM (#1353979)
    This is not without precedent. 14 years ago an independant dairy in Belgium was sued by the French Cheese Coalition for marketing what was at the time branded an "interactive cheese". What happened was this. The cheese would ask the consumer what they liked the most about milk based products, and then assume the properties of the cheese that the person most desired, even if they did not know the name (believe it or not, there are people who cannot properly identify a Brie versus a Stilton, despite each having attributes that are generally favored!).

    The FCC had, at the time, offered for sale a license which would allow the use of limited interactivity (a cheese could emulate any one of a group of cheeses in a "family", but not universal cheese emulation) within a 7 mile radius, 4 in larger metropolitan areas. These licenses were obtainable for 4 thousand francs, and available at most government dairy agencies and gas stations. Thus the order of cheese specialization was maintained, despite the increase in cheese technology.

    The Belgian Dairy was completely unaware of the existance of these patents, and had reverse engineered a proprietary French cheese to discover the emulation alogrithm. A restraining order was filed not only against the dairy that created the cheese, but to anyone linking to the information. 17 people present in the curdling process were shot in the head.

    However, two years ago, this case was settled out of court. Exact terms of the settlement are unknown at this time.

  • Re:Need for Patents (Score:4)

    by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @02:34PM (#1353980) Homepage
    Excuse 2 doesnt work as a lot of inventors can testify after going bannkrupt.

    See you patent a cool idea as a small group. A big company use it so you complain. They offer to buy it from you for an insulting sum. You refuse and they refuse to license it claiming your patent is probably invalid. You sue them. They sue you back for anything they can think of including every patent vaguely related they own.

    So you are forced to go bust or settle out of court. The settlement includes you paying them royalties and them not paying you a penny.

    If you stay in business the big company will simply sell for less than you, and if you are annoying they will dump product below cost to remove you for good

    That is the patent system. Not quite what its designers had in mind ..

    Alan

  • Gemstar: (Score:4)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:02AM (#1353981) Homepage Journal
    These are the same fools who gave us VCR+. There appear to be three Gemstar patents that TiVo touches on:

    Video time-shifting apparatus: Allows you to 'rewind' a broadcast channel.
    Apparatus and method for channel scanning by theme: Lets you push the 'Sci-Fi' button and only surf through channels you designate as Science Fiction.
    System and method for displaying program listings in an interactive electronic program guide: Self explaining.

    All are quite broad, and TiVo may have very well stepped in one of them.

  • Possible Patent #s (Score:4)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:36AM (#1353982) Homepage Journal
    They seem to own a whole bunch of Electronic program guide related patents here are the ones I found:

    US05630119: System and method for displaying program listings in an interactive electronic program guide [ibm.com]
    US5870150: Television guide reader and programmer [ibm.com]
    US5886746: Method for channel scanning [ibm.com]

  • Ameritech Cable Had Problem, Too (Score:4)

    by StoryMan ( 130421 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @11:21AM (#1353983)
    Actually this is interesting. Several weeks ago, I had Ameritech Americast cable installed. I chose it because it had one of those on-screen guides -- scroll through the list, then click to select a channel to view -- and because the picture was a helluva better than the competing cable carrier in town. Americast comes with a pretty nice looking remote control that allows you to switch between the TV and the on-screen guide. Anyway, the rep was in the process of running the cable when I tried the on-screen guide. It popped right up, but instead of popping on the screen with the correct time, the guide was two hours into the future. I said, "What's with this?" Rep explained that Ameritech had been sued by StarSight for infrining on their patented-onscreen menu idea. But instead of Ameritech ditching the menu altogether, they merely rigged it so that when you clicked the on-screen guide it popped up two hours ahead of the current time -- and then you had to hit the 'Rewind' button to get it to pop up with programs for the current time. He agreed with me that it was amazingly annoying but that it was the only way Ameritech could use the on-screen guide and not infringe on the patent. Pretty bizarre -- and pathetic.

  • Re:Yes, they do (Score:4)

    by MerlinOfChaos ( 140956 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @12:41PM (#1353984) Homepage
    As an employee of DIVA [divatv.com], I've seen a little bit about GemStar's patents.

    1) They ahve almost everything you can imagine about doing stuff in the cable set top box itself, including some really ridiculous asset injection stuff which is not really even related to an IPG (Interactive Program Guide).

    2) DIVA has an IPG that we announced at Western Cable last month. TV Guide (Gemstar) was just about to invest a fair sum of money in us, and then immediately backed out when we would not pull our IPG from the show.

    3) We don't infringe on their patents by doing it all on the server.

    4) Heck yea, we patented everything we could, lest Gemstar patent it first.

    5) Gemstar currently has a lock on the IPG market. Scientific Atlanta's SARA is being pretty much discontinued, I believe, because of the patent infringements. Since Gemstar and TV Guide merged they're the only interactive program guide available, nowadays, and they charge MSOs (your cable companies) a fortune so YOU can have an inferior guide.

    6) Gemstar will win this in court, from everything I've heard. The patents are solid, and unfortunately there is big legal precedent for stupid patents of this nature.

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