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Patents

TiVo Infringes On Pause Patent 392

Posted by Hemos from the dumb-dumb-patents dept.
Blackwulf writes: "It seems that there's a company named Pause Technologies which patented in 1992 the ability to pause live TV, play a portion of it, and then skip ahead to live TV. They are now suing TiVo for infringing on their patent. Motorola has already paid licensing fees for their upcoming PVR, and Pause Technologies is speaking with other PVR makers offering licenses to them as well. Yahoo has the story here." Pausing. Obviously, a new idea, and one worthy of patenting. I think I'm going to patent the play button.
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TiVo Infringes On Pause Patent More

TiVo Infringes On Pause Patent

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  • ATI All In Wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:08PM (#2379054) Journal
    Does this mean that ATI is also infringing on the patent since their All In Wonder cards come with software that allows you to pause live TV?

    • Re:ATI All In Wonder (Score:2, Informative)

      by rsborg ( 111459 )
      Does this mean that ATI is also infringing on the patent since their All In Wonder cards come with software that allows you to pause live TV?

      Perhaps not... the patent makes very direct references to the use of a "circular buffer" using "digital memory"... specifically,

      "Subsystem comprising the combination of a semiconductor RAM memory and a disk memory operated under the control of a microprocessor such..."

      Since the All-in-Wonder does not use disk memory, I doubt they could be targetted by this patent.

      • Re:ATI All In Wonder (Score:3, Insightful)

        by GigsVT ( 208848 )
        "Subsystem comprising the combination of a semiconductor RAM memory and a disk memory operated under the control of a microprocessor such..."
        Since the All-in-Wonder does not use disk memory, I doubt they could be targetted by this patent.

        Now, I don't know for sure, but I believe that the ATI method does use "a combination of semiconductor RAM and disk memory".

        THe length of time you can pause it is limited by the hard disk you tell it to use... so I know it is writing out to disk, and i'm sure that it is buffering it in RAM before writing it, so I think it's exactly what the patent says.

      • actually it does use the disk.

  • Not a patent on "Pausing" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mwongozi ( 176765 ) <slashthree@nOsPaM.davidglover.org> on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:09PM (#2379060) Homepage
    Come on Hemos, this isn't a patent on pausing. It's a patent on the concept of freezing a live feed and buffering the incoming picture, and then continuing to play a time-delayed picture.

    Worthy of a patent, methinks.

    • Now if we could only pause live human interaction and then listen to the relevant parts, ie: your boss, or significant other as they ramble on...
    • Excuse me, please explain how it is different from a tape delay used by censors prior to the introduction of digital systems. The tape is a memory buffer, you can place heads at different locations along the tape stream to get live and delayed feeds. It just looks obvious to me and I'm not unusually skilled in the art of video systems.
    • Worthy of a patent, methinks

      I can't imagine that this type of technology didn't exist in newsrooms and other parts of tv networks prior to 1992.

    • Give me a break. It's just using a buffer to store a datastream until a later point in time. If this is a patent infringement, then half the software out there is a patent infringment. Good god, what's next, patenting the concept of a variable?
      • It's not just a buffer, they've taken the concept of a buffer and used it in a very specific and practical way, to let you pause live video and not miss the bits inbetween "pause" and "unpause".

        Since the patent only applies to this usage, any other use of a buffer is not affected.

        • This is what buffers and FIFO's are for... to allow transfer of data between two asychronous streams; specifically, when either the consumer or the producer has large amounts of jitter (hint: think PAUSE). All such buffers are circular, because making an infinite size FIFO is impossible. Hence: this patent IS obvious AND has prior art. Just because you think it is clever doesn't mean a damn thing.
    • Worthy of a patent, methinks.

      I don't think so! To me it seems like a logical extension of using a computer to capture a video stream.

      The problem with these patents is that opinion differs on how obvious these things are. If only there was a way to determine if an infringer actually came up with the idea independently, we could avoid these kinds of dumb patent suits.

      • The problem with these patents is that opinion differs on how obvious these things are.

        This is a good reason for having patent applications reviewed by people who at least know enough about the field in question not to be confused by "technobabble", let alone deliberate attempts of obscuration.
    • Yeah, exactly, pausing live T.V.

      "It's a patent on the concept of freezing a live feed and buffering the incoming picture"

      Isn't that "pausing" live T.V.?

      This is a type of pausing, so, you're wrong...

  • Prior Art (Score:2, Funny)

    by FFFish ( 7567 )
    Hey, I remember using this patent back when I was a kid, looooong before this "Pause Technologies" patented the idea.

    It was called blinking.

    Pretty simple technology, really: (A) Look at scene. (B) Close eyes. Brain continues to recall scene, effectively pausing the action. (C) Open eyes. Live action playback is resumed.

    Ah, if only I'd known that this was such an innovative idea, I'd have patented it back in '72. Coulda been a billionaire by now -- those VCRs wouldn't be nearly as useful without frame-by-frame playback!

  • Idiots please post under this thread... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pergamon ( 4359 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:11PM (#2379071) Homepage
    Please post all "I think I'm going to patent [insert obvious commonly used everyday thing here]! hehehe! Aren't I clever!" type posts under this thread so they they can be summarily ignored.
    • Please post all "I think I'm going to patent [insert obvious commonly used everyday thing here]! hehehe! Aren't I clever!" type posts under this thread so they they can be summarily ignored.

      They wouldn't be so "clever" if it weren't for the fact that the U.S. Patent office has a growing track record for patenting stupid things that ARE obvious and everyday. It's absolutely absurd that there's only one place I can go on the web and purchase with one click (not that I really want to, but on principle...) because Amazon.com has been granted a patent. It's unreasonable, and brings out a bitter reaction because who knows if our company's next? Take it one step further - is 2-click purchasing worth a patent? What about 3 or 4?


      If this patent is enforced consumers will either have less functionality in their PVR's or face higher prices because this company was granted a patent for an obvious idea.

    • Well, I definetly qualify as an idiot... but what to patent??? hmmm...

      How about patenting the art of patenting stupid patents...??? I'll be rich!!!

  • Small difference (Score:3, Redundant)

    by jmccay ( 70985 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:11PM (#2379073) Journal
    "Pausing. Obviously, a new idea, and one worthy of patenting. I think I'm going to patent the play button. "

    The patent was on puasing a LIVE TV stream. That would involve buffering on some end to keep the stuff that normally would get lost in a live one way feed like most tv signals.
    • The patent was on puasing a LIVE TV stream. That would involve buffering on some end to keep the stuff that normally would get lost in a live one way feed like most tv signals.
      We called this a FIFO since well before the Reagan Era. All that's particularly novel is the application (and the availability of appropriately sized FIFOs).

      I guess the trick is to patent whatever costs $5k to put in a box today, because it'll cost about $100 within ten years.

      -jhp

  • They can't have invented this.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:13PM (#2379080)
    A broadcast recording and playback device employing a "circular buffer" which constantly records one or more incoming audio or video program signals and a microprocessor for accessing the memory to read a playback signal from the circular buffer to display programming material delayed from its receipt by a selectable delay interval. The circular buffer is implemented by a digital memory.

    Doesn't that describe a very common and straightforward buffer, such as the kind that have been employed in portable CD players for years now?

    • Yeah it's a normal FIFO buffer. Have you ever read the patent database over at IBM? There are so many hundreds of patents that overlap each other it's not funny.
    • Isn't it a bit different that the live TV stream keeps going and keeps filling the buffer? When it gets to the "end" of the buffer (30 minutes for Tivo, I believe), it "pushes" you along and moves the buffer ahead to keep recording the stream. I don't think a buffering CD player (or MP3 player) does that since it's not really a "live" stream...

      Not having seen the patent I can't be sure, but just from the blurb from slashdot it seems patentable. Surely Tivo knew about it...? Does Tivo have any patents?

      jason

  • It was probably new 9 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:13PM (#2379081) Journal
    How many of us saw the Tivo pause function and said "Hey! That's a great idea!" because we had never thought of it? In 92 pausing live TV was probably novel and non-obvious.

    • Re:It was probably new 9 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:25PM (#2379180)

      They took a common technique, "circular buffering", and applied it to a new "problem." I don't think that's worthy of a patent. They didn't invent the technique, and it was an obvious solution to the problem at hand. The only thing they did do was decide that people might want such an ability in the first place, and decide to market a device for that purpose.

      • They took a common technique, "circular buffering", and applied it to a new "problem."

        Except that the technique had already been applied to live video streams for decades. For such things as "Instant replay" of sporting events, profanity delays, etc.
    • 9 years ago I thought of this all the time. Everytime I had to piss and missed something on T.V., I thought, damn, I wish I had an always on VCR that constantly kept like .5 hours of T.V. "buffered" so I could pause the T.V. and not miss anything.

      It's a really, really, really, really simple, obvious, non-novel concept. Actually, before I even knew what a fucking Tivo did, I started working on a Linux box to do this.

      I guess I'm just a freaking genius then, since this is supposedly such a novel concept. I should have patented this 10 years ago when I was 13... right...

    • Re:It was probably new 9 years ago - NOT (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It wasn't that new of an idea, even in 1992. I remember an "I Dream of Jeannie" episode where, at the end of the episode, Jeannie wants to go out and do something, and the dude that Larry Hagman played wanted to watch a very important football game. Jeanne blinked, paused the TV, and presumebly, when they got back Jeannie blinked again, and the game continued.

      So the idea of pausing live TV has been around since at least September 1970 (When the last original episode of Jeannie aired), and probably around alot longer then that.
    • The question ought to be "given this problem, can an engineer familiar with digital audio/video easily come up with a solution for solving it", and I bet most people skilled in the art would be able to. And since this kind of buffering is a standard, widely used technique in many areas, someone skilled in the art should have been. In fact, many people clearly did think of the application of this technique to radio and video independently.

      What the patent is actually on is a market niche and a gamble: someone paid several thousand dollars betting that this market niche would become lucrative enough within the lifetime of the patent to recoup the cost. It's like a big gambling parlor.

    • So, maybe it was novel 9 years ago. But today, every engineer, even one who never heard about TiVo or All-in-Wonder cards could easily devise a solution for this task.

      Patents should awarded for ingenious solutions, not for first posts.

      Cryogenes

      • The entire definition of a patent might be "first post."

        When Bell patented the telephone, Elisha Gray tried to patent his telephone a few hours later the same day (see http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1625.htm for details).

        Both might have been ingenious, but I can see the spiritual anscestors of /.ers saying, "talking at a distance? Bah! I've been yelling on mountaintops for years!"

        -jon

  • link to patent (Score:5, Informative)

    by jamus ( 1439 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:15PM (#2379101) Journal
    Here's a link [164.195.100.11] to patent in question (RES36801) from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The link was pulled off the pause technology website.

  • Seems valid to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by khyron664 ( 311649 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:15PM (#2379104)
    People on slashdot have a tendency to speak badly of technology patents, and for the most part I agree, but this one seems valid. Look at when it was filed. 1992. Very very few people were even thinking about the idea of pausing live TV back then. Just because it is a simple idea (especially now) does not mean the patent isn't valid when it was filed for. That's the nature of technology. You could make a case of "patent squatting" since the company doesn't appear to have done anything with the patent, but that's a whole other can of worms.

    The company could be an "idea" company like Rambus, which I can't really say I like the idea of, but they've been around for a long time. I guess they add value somewhere.

    Khyron
    • No to most of us the problem isn't the patent in and of itself but in the timing of it's enforcement. Tivo and the concept of pausing live TV has now been around for a couple of years at least not to mention the time it took to develop and that the information would have been in the marketing material and press. So why is it that a company that creates a concept 1) never develops it 2) waits 9 years to begin to enforce it's patent after the technology has already been adopted by multiple vendors.

      My personal belief is that if you don't defend that patent from day 1 then you are not entitled to any reimbursement whatsoever. This would stop all of these holding companies and patent vultures from waiting for tech to be incorporated into everyday life and then trying to step in to reap all of the benefits by screwing everyone.

      • >So why is it that a company that creates a concept 1) never develops it 2) waits 9 years to begin to enforce it's patent after the technology has already been adopted by multiple vendors

        Hmmm... according to the article:

        "In 1996, a re-examination was requested, and on August 1, 2000 the patent was reissued by the Patent Office with the same filing date and additional claim coverage."

        "TiVo was notified on April 4th, 2000 and again on May 23, 2001 that it was infringing on the patent and an offer to discuss licensing terms was extended."

        So I read this as they had to go and get the thing re-issued (not sure who initiated the "re-examination request"). So from 96-2000 they didn't have a legal patent? When did TiVo start developing their implementation? The the USPO re-issues the patent retroactive to the original filing date and the _same year_ they start notifying TiVo.

        I'm not defending their actions, but it doesn't seem as clear cut to me as "waits 9 years to begin to enforce it's patent after the technology has already been adopted by multiple vendors."

    • Look at when it was filed. 1992. Very very few people were even thinking about the idea of pausing live TV back then. Just because it is a simple idea (especially now) does not mean the patent isn't valid when it was filed for. That's the nature of technology. You could make a case of "patent squatting" since the company doesn't appear to have done anything with the patent, but that's a whole other can of worms.

      The problem is that if we consider having an idea the only prerequisite for getting a valid patent, our whole future is locked up by amateur futurists. It's easy to come up with ideas but it's the specific implementation that's important.

      In this case we have technology that would have been developed and used even if the patent had never been filed. The goal of patents are not to reward the first person to come up with a given idea, but to protect the work someone has done. Time delayed video techniques have been used by the network studios for years, so have digital circular buffers. Combining existing tools in an obvious manner to meet an eventual need is not patent worthy.

      I have no doubt that this patent will eventually be struck down in court if pressed far enough. It is merely irritating that this has to happen this way.

    • then why the hell did it take them so long to come down on TiVo? did they want to make sure that the product took off, and grew large enough so that they could make their income in the courthouse, instead of the appliance store?

      it take bravery, hard work and constant diligence to make a company work - particularly in this economy. Imagine if we all sat on our asses patenting everything and suing if/when some brave soul who wants to make a living out there decides to make a move.
    • There was plenty of similar concepts in video recording, playback and live editing back then. However there was one huge reason nobody tried to use it to mass market live TV pauseing devices back then:

      Nobody would pay $10000 for such a device.

      Five years later, the price sinks to $1000 and then they start developing, and a few years later its down to $100, and several companies independently have products that use such technology.

      This has nothing whatsoever to do with invention or ideas. It might have been a new idea in the 60's, but since then it's merely been an impractical idea, requireing either a number of magnetic tapes or disk space worth tens of thousands of dollars.

      And timing a patent filing on an old idea merely because it is within practical marketing reach is maybe a buisness plan (mmm, patentable buisness method maybe?), but it sure isnt worthy of a patent.
    • Look at when it was filed. 1992. Very very few people were even thinking about the idea of pausing live TV back then.

      I'm pretty sure more than one person thought of the idea then. I'd be surprised if you couldn't even find published suggestions for this feature, perhaps in fiction, television, and/or vision papers. Digital video had been available on UNIX workstations for more than a decade, and people were actively using it in research. Places like the MIT Media Lab were already dreaming up the television of the future.

      In fact, with digital video, it is completely natural and expected that you can access a video file while its tail end is being recorded. One of the first things you naturally try is something like "record_video > file & sleep 3; play_video file", and if your player is suitably robust and your I/O system suitably fast and/or buffered, this will just work and give you the ability to pause live video. If it doesn't work, people will quickly figure out that they need a faster disk or bigger buffer.

      This patent is on something that seems astounding when you think "tapes", but something you don't even think twice about when working with digital video. Unfortunately, a lot of patents are like that. Now, a specific, non-obvious, cost effective of doing this with a tape or analog disk-based recorder might have been an interesting patent.

      I completely agree with your point about squatting and a requirement to defend, however.

    • As people pointed out, pausing live television has been a desired feature for a long time. _I Dream of Jeannie_ supposedly had an episode where she did this, back in the early 70s.

      Circular buffers are a trivial concept, I myself invented them independently in grade four, for use in an undo feature.

      Assuming that all professional programmers either read about or figured out circular buffers on their own, the only "innovation" here is in applying that solution to the problem. However, as this is likely the way anyone would solve this problem, it's not very innovative.

      Face it, it's a bogus patent. So are most that get mentioned on Slashdot. "We" bash most patents because peopel are free to patent shit like business models these days.

      Not only has the patent office completely given up on its mandate, but patents are a broken idea to begin with. They reward the first person to register with the patent office, not necessarily the inventor. And when they do reward an inventor, they screw everyone else who developed that independently.

      Furthermore, this patent appears to have been intentionally delayed so as to bring it out when the market was already using the technology, allowing the "inventor" to extort money from everyone who independently invented the technology.

      In my not so humble opinion, the filer of the patent is a thief. They package up other people's ideas, wait for someone to make a useful product, and try to get the courts to award them a large percentage of it. The laws may currently allow this, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
  • Looks like I'll have to see who capitualtes and who doesn't when I shop for a PVR. Seems I won't be buying a Motorola model.

  • Go to the company's website... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cinnamon ( 15309 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:16PM (#2379116) Homepage
    This looks suspicious to say the least. Go to their site, apparently as a company Pause Technologies does... Well, nothing, except has this one patent. They have maybe six total pages on their whole site, and none of them reference anything concrete beyond this one patent. My guess is this company is just a facade (Note the 'llc' instead of 'inc', this is usually a pretty clear sign) for an individual or law firm that decided they wanted to make a quick buck.

    Not to say they didn't patent it, but they're trying to pass themselves off as a technology company. Much more likely some asshole with dollar signs in his eyes was looking at a vcr remote one day and thought, "Eureka!" The rest is history.
    • Note the 'llc' instead of 'inc', this is usually a pretty clear sign) for an individual or law firm that decided they wanted to make a quick buck.

      Now that's just low, smearing LLCs. There are a lot of reasons to choose an LLC as opposed to an Inc. LLCs tend to be smaller, but that doesn't mean they are dishonest. I own an LLC, and we aren't a load of bastards.
  • can be found here [uspto.gov]

    Wow... reminds me of the Aussie guy who patented the wheel...

    (This comment did not pass the lameness filter)
    • I don't know. It looks like they actually had the idea down and patented it before anyone else came along. That legally makes it their IP. The wording of the patent seems to demonstrate it's thought through and well explained, unlike a lot of "vague" tech patents like patenting a mouse click on the web. It also doesn't look like there's much of a case for prior art here either.

      I have a feeling TiVO's gonna settle out of court on this one. It'd be a hard pressed fight to win.
      • but there's a difference.

        "pausing" anything is not innovative or new. Much less "pausing live TV". I don't care what you have to do in order to do it, I can guarantee you that 1000s of other people have thought "damn I gotta go to the washroom/fridge/answer the phone but I don't want to miss what's going to happen next!".

        Dimply putting fancy jargon behind it (obviously without a device to acutally implement it, and since they never did much work on the implementation side of things just shows that this guy was patenting a simple idea). Check out my other post about the other things that this guy has patented. He's just patenting obvious ideas with fancy jargon (he uses the "circular buffer" concept in like ALL of them. Prior art? Check out the "outgoing" cassette in your 1980s answering machine, or just about any implementation of a FIFO buffer in existance, like your dos based keyboard buffer for example).

        The might settle out of court just to avoid the cost of the lawsuit. Or they might think that this Pause Technology company doesn't have the money to back up a lengthy lawsuit and just call their bluff. Many times "filing a lawsuit" is just a scare tactic.

    • Re:The patent (this guy has been gusy) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Telek ( 410366 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:29PM (#2379214) Homepage
      Interesting... We're talking about one of the best minds of the 20th century (/sarcasm)

      more patents by the same guy [uspto.gov]

      my favorites:

      Apparatus for testing lumber stiffness [uspto.gov]
      (how to check the stiffness of wood. wierd trend he set here)

      System for using a touchpad input device for cursor control and keyboard emulation [uspto.gov]
      (it's called repatenting the touchpad)

      Audio message exchange system [uspto.gov]
      (you know how old answering machines use a looping cassette? well yeah, that in computer form)

      Billing system and method [uspto.gov]
      (*any* ebilling system would infringe on this patent)

      Techniques for changing the behavior of a link in a hypertext document [uspto.gov]
      (any dynamic page violates this patent)
  • This is like those idiot cybersquatters. These morons patent a concept, do jack shit to develop it, then get mad when someone else does. There should be a clause in US Patent law that requires you to actually implement your ideas. Otherwise people just sit on it until someone else makes it work, then reap huge financial rewards for being the first to buy the piece of paper.

    One wonders why they didn't do something a couple of years ago when Tivo first started selling these boxes...

  • I think this says it all about Pause Technology... (Score:3, Informative)

    by AX.25 ( 310140 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:19PM (#2379137)
    >Pause Technology is an intellectual property company focused on the Personal Video Recorder market and related industries. In addition to licensing our existing patents we are interested in acquiring new ones as well. Please direct any representations of new technologies to Charlie Call .

    Pause Technology, founded in 2000, is an LLC that has been well funded by major corporate and individual shareholders.

    There use of technology is the only technology in the whole company. Does it make sense that a company founded in 2000 can buy old "unexploited" patients and sue innovative companies? Bad lawyers...bad...bad.

  • Hmmm. (Score:4, Funny)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak&yahoo,com> on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:19PM (#2379140) Homepage Journal
    Let's test the US Government's new resolve. I think that patenting the obvious, trivial or otherwise unimplementable, is an act of terrorism.


    I therefore suggest that the US 5th Cavalry and the Tie Fighters attack from the south, and turn Pause into the kind of rubble Afghanistan already is.

  • It's all in how the patent's worded, of course. If the patent is too broad, then it'll get killed by prior art. If it's too narrow, TiVO will get off scott free. However, the fact that Motorola licensed the technology indicates there may actually be some merit to this patent debate. There's also the fact that Pause tried to talk to TiVO about it before taking it to court.

    It's highly likely this is a legitimate complaint, so remarks like "oh I think I'll go patent /insert basic idea here/ and make a money" may be inappropriate. It really all depends on the wording in the patent. If they really did get a good patent on the idea, then they should be allowed to defend it. The idea of pausing live TV is still pretty innovative, and thus if the technology is described with no vague BS, then the patent dispute is valid.
    • However, the fact that Motorola licensed the technology indicates there may actually be some merit to this patent debate.

      Or that they didn't want to get caught in a lengthy court battle that would inevitably cost more than just paying the royalties.

      Gotta love the "justice" system.
  • ...back in 1992, the computer technology was nowhere NEAR advanced enough to allow for pausing of live TV using a PVR. The memory and disk space requirements would have been functionally impossible. So this patent, while describing a neat idea, was functionally useless until about 2-3 years ago.

    While that doesn't invalidate the patent in and of itself, it does make me wonder what the "inventor" intended to do with this idea. How can you invent something that can't be built?
    • Just because you can't currently build it, doesn't mean it won't be possible one day.

      We currently can't build a working fusion power station, but recent stories suggest it may be possible in 10 years.

      There's nothing to stop you patenting an idea that, while theoretically possible, is unimplementable at the present time.

    • In 1992, RAM was in the hundreds of dollars/meg, so this probably wasn't feasible then. However, I agree with the other reply, in that just because is wasn't feasible or economically sound to implement at the time, it doesn't mean it won't be later.

      If I come up with a design for a working warp drive that uses some sort of thing that we cannot readily make today, but can be manufactured cheaply while my patent is still in effect, I should be rewarded for coming up with the idea. Ideas that push the envelope are the ones that help keep technology moving forward.
      • The deal about patents, though (at one time) - required that you have a working prototype, or at least a model of some sort.

        I am not sure how it really works today, but it seems like now (from what I understand), the models can be more virtual - to the point of where if you can CAD it, it is as good as the real thing (at least to the USPTO - there was an article in a well known inventors magazine talking about using CAD/3D for "prototyping" an invention, and how to use such things to patent the invention and get investment money).

        Of course, we all know that if it is 3D on a screen, it must be produceable in real-life, right [sarcasm off]

        Anyhow, I could see how the inventor (of the original patent) in this case might have been able to come up with a very expensive prototype at the time, in 1992. Or, it could have been a cheaper implementation, perhaps even in software. It wouldn't have to record full live TV - heck, a low res postage stamp size video image @ 10FPS, pausing/unpausing it would have been enough - in fact, I would bet you could do a very crude implementation with a frame-grabber and 286 at the time.

        Still, I tend to wonder though if his model/prototype was simply nothing more than a drawing of boxes and lines on paper - it could have been. But, not knowing the specifics on this, it is all speculation. I wonder if he was amply compensated by Pause for his work?

        Your idea of a warp drive wouldn't be possible, unless you had prototypes of the underlying technology or such (then you would/should only get patents on that). Or at least, that is how it is supposed to work - but things have been real hinky in the USPTO for a long while - for all I know, a simple text description might be enough.

        On a side note, it may actually be possible that within the USPTO database exists all the patents surrounding the needed components for both a working fusion system and a warp drive - perhaps all by different inventors. Good luck finding that combination, though...
    • It was quite useful in an analog version. It was available for, and in use by, television no later than the mid-1970s. I remember all the flak when Richard Pryor went on the original Saturday Night Live, which wasn't going to be exactly live. NBC had a 7-second delay hooked up. They used it, too. A few times. Even though Rich tried hard to behave. They'd dump a second or so every time Rich said what he shouldn't, and they'd be at commercial often enough to reset and have another seven seconds.

      woof.

  • Sounds like a predator company to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Refried Beans ( 70083 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:25PM (#2379181) Homepage
    From their about us page:

    Pause Technology is an intellectual property company focused on the Personal Video Recorder market and related industries. In addition to licensing our existing patents we are interested in acquiring new ones as well. Please direct any representations of new technologies to Charlie Call .

    Pause Technology, founded in 2000, is an LLC that has been well funded by major corporate and individual shareholders.

    It looks to me that this company was founded after TiVo and Replay were already products. They must have bought a patent from someone so they could try to exploit other companies that actually did something with the technology. IMNSHO, patents should be a bit more like trademarks, in that you have to use the technology or you lose it.

    • IMNSHO, patents should be a bit more like trademarks, in that you have to use the technology or you lose it.

      Here I have to disagree... Say, for example, you come up with this awesome new product that has never been seen before in the market. Now say that to actually implement this idea would take half a million dollars to do. You're an individual, you don't have half a million lying around, nor the facilities to mass produce this new product for the marketplace... So you patent your idea to protect it.

      Except that in your world, if you don't have the means of producing the product, you lose the patent. Suddenly, every major company that can afford it is producing your product, and you don't get a penny, even though you came up with the whole idea in the first place.

      This is what patents were always meant to protect. Individuals with ideas that they had no chance of ever being able to finance their ideas into a product. A company could buy rights from this person to produce the product if they thought it a good idea, and the individual would be protected if a big company decides that they can go ahead and implement this person's idea without compensating him. It's been twisted quite a bit as of late, with more corporate patents than individual patents, but that's pretty much inescapable now. When you start work at a company, you're required to sign a sheet that essentially says "What's ours is ours, and what's yours is ours."

  • TiVo's patent application: July 27, 1999 (Score:3, Informative)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:30PM (#2379230)
    Patent #5,930,444 [uspto.gov]

    Simultaneous recording and playback apparatus

    Abstract
    A keyboard equipped audiovisial recording and playback device is provided having an input and an output adapted for connection between a users signal source and display device, respectively, and a memory unit with a storage medium enabling random access to programming information stored therein. A keyboard responsive control circuit enables manipulation and transfer of programming information between the input, output and memory. Because of the relative high speed of the control circuitry and memory access, substantially simultaneous recording and playback of television type signals is achieved, thus enabling user controlled programming delay.

  • Radio time delay (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blazin ( 119416 )
    How long has radio time delay been used? You know the ones that allow them to censor the callers who swear on the air before it gets sent out on the airwaves? This sounds a bit similar... I wonder if it is pre-1992?
  • Ok maybe Tivo should have done a little research to see if anyone has any outstanding patents (it seems Motorola did (research)), but patenting the pause button is a little silly. Ok, I can perfectly understand the fact that this company is suing Tivo for use of a practice (I don't even consider this technology) that they own without appropriate royalties, etc. However what I don't understand is how the govt can possibly justify giving somebody a patent on something mundane as pausing television. If it was the technology of pausing television then yes (all the hardwork went into developing that technology). But for the concept? What if someone had patented the idea of a button on an html page. (Bare with me here). Its not all that different, neither were implemented technology. Would the world wide web consortium have violated that patent when they decided on html? I know the comparison is kind of rediculous, but isn't the idea of patenting a concept alittle rediculous too? In a perfect world/democracy an idea should be open, with technique being patenable. That seems to be the best way of conserving competitiveness while protecting accomplishment.
    • But you can't be sued for infringement unless you knowingly infringe.
      If you didn't know there was a patent, and the patent holder didn't tell you, they can't sue you for damages, no?

      I thought they could only go for damages after they inform you of the patent and you ignore them.
  • Pausing. Obviously, a new idea, and one worthy of patenting. I think I'm going to patent the play button.

    Of course this thread will degenerate into rants along the lines of "I will patent breathing", but despite the snide remark, back in 1992, pausing LIVE TV was definitely an original idea. Remember, digital VCRs didn't exist back then. Video capture cards were hideously expensive and reserved for professional video editors. At that time, the idea that you could pause live TV and then start playing it again while it was still recording was unheard of.

  • What does "reissued" mean on their patent? Does this patent bite the dust in 2009 or 2017?

  • But did Tivo *know* about Pause's patent (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jswitte ( 216975 ) <jswitte@blooming ... TBSDus minus bsd> on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @01:42PM (#2379346)
    I agree with the argument that an obvious idea at time x may not have been obvious at time x-10, so was worthy of a patent then. But AFAIK, Tivo didn't use Pause Technologie's implementation of the "compressed-video-FIFO" of whatever they called it. Tivo reinvented the same idea again, probably without knowing about Pause's patent (this alone makes it sound like a submarine patent). IMO, independent invention, if not being totally illegal.

    The idea of patents is to reward people (for a limited period of time) for the work of creating useful inventions/ideas by being able to charge people money to use them. If I come up with a nify way to make a magnet out of cerium and boron somehow (not magnetic AFAIK, but if it is, I get first dibs ;-), I should be allowed to patent it and sell that implementation. If someone else comes up with the same idea, and it turns out they stole it from me (trade secret for instance), I should be able to sue them. But if they work for 10 years and come up with the same formula, without ever knowing that I had, I shouldn't be able to ay anything.

    Of course, pantents are public record (at least some parts of them are), so it could be very difficult to prove that Tivo "had no knowledge of Pause's patent" prior to coming up with the Tivo machine. This would always be a problem with patents, more so when the idea is a 'simple one' ("gee, I was browsing the patent database one day and saw this one about pausing live tv. I didn't look at it, but that could make a lot of money" Does that constitute "knowledge of the patent? I don't know)

    • Unfortunately, in patent law.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @02:20PM (#2379694)
      It doesn't matter if you independently come up with the idea, or if you use someone elses patent as a source of information. Either way, you are infringing on their patent.

      You might be right about lawsuits though... I don't think you can sue for infringement if the other party was not aware you had a patent. EVen worse, if the patent holder knew about it and didnt' say anything. I think you can only sue for damages if you tell them about your patent and they ignore it.

  • How Tivo Works... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashkitty ( 21637 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @02:02PM (#2379516) Homepage
    Tivo never actually plays live TV. It only plays recordings. Tivo is constanly recording the incoming video stream. The interface that you have is just a playback of recorded programs, including the current "live buffer". However, you can never actually watch live tv, the closest you can get is a ~2 second delay. Everything you see is coming directly off the harddrive... Maybe this is enough of a difference to not be infringing?
    • Good point! quite possibly.

      It doesnt' take much to get around a patent...

      I recall a company that did machines for automatically sizing & cutting logs, (the lumber industry). They had a laser measuring device.
      They got around another company's patent on a machine simply by putting some 'filters' in front of some of the lasers to attenuate them. The original patent specified that output power of some lasers were equal.. they just did it unequal. It wasn't that important to the patent.. but due to the wording, made their device 'new'.
  • The AIWs do this too, just no mention.

  • Looks like Tivo already handled it (Score:3, Informative)

    by latneM ( 7876 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @02:21PM (#2379699)
    If you look at A Tivo Patent (6,233,389) [164.195.100.11] they discuss prior art.

    The use of digital computer systems to solve this problem has been suggested. U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,551 issued to Logan et al., on Dec. 6, 1994, teaches a method for concurrent video recording and playback. It presents a microprocessor controlled broadcast and playback device. Said device compresses and stores video data onto a hard disk. However, this approach is difficult to implement because the processor requirements for keeping up with the high video rates makes the device expensive and problematic. The microprocessor must be extremely fast to keep up with the incoming and outgoing video data.

    It would be advantageous to provide a multimedia time warping system that gives the user the ability to simultaneously record and play back TV broadcast programs. It would further be advantageous to provide a multimedia time warping system that utilizes an approach that decouples the microprocessor from the high video data rates, thereby reducing the microprocessor and system requirements which are at a premium.

    Just for reference, U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,551 is the Pause Technology Patent. So not only was Tivo aware of this patent, they talk about the shortcomings and why their way is better.
    As an aside, it looks like if the Tivo is infringing on the patent, it's only the stand alone unit. Their DirecTV receivers with Tivo do no compression.
  • I think a lot of what people object to in patents like this is that they basically just use obvious and commonly known methods to translate old analog inventions to digital "inventions".

    Yeah, there's a small spark of "genius" in being the first to realize digital has advanced far enough to emulate a particular analog device - or at least in thinking of patenting it - but even that is VERY heavily trod ground.

    There ought to be a principle established that no patent is granted on inventions that are simply translated from one fundamental technology to another. Once we work out common design principles for quantum technology, let's NOT have a "quantum pause" patent...
    • I think a lot of what people object to in patents like this is that they basically just use obvious and commonly known methods to translate old analog inventions to digital "inventions".

      Or in extreme cases simply using a "computer" leading to some very old technique being considered "innovation".

      Yeah, there's a small spark of "genius" in being the first to realize digital has advanced far enough to emulate a particular analog device - or at least in thinking of patenting it - but even that is VERY heavily trod ground.

      This is the point a lot ot areas should be very much "one shot" when it comes to pantenting. Once the first person has done it the other applications in the same area of technology might well become "obvious".
  • Gotuit Video, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gotuit Media, Corp. Both companies were founded by Logan, who is also the founder of MicroTouch Systems, Inc. (MTSI) a $160 million manufacturer of touch screen systems. He was a board member of Andover.Net, parent company of famed tech community Slashdot and a leader in the Open Source movement, which was recently sold to VA Linux.

    Gotuit's prominent board of advisors includes Harvard Law School Professor Terry Fisher, a leading authority on Internet and copyright law; Joel Harrison, cofounder of the Quantum Corporation; Mark Pascarella, EVP of The Topol Group LLC; Brian Zisk, cofounder of the Future of Music Coalition and Green Witch Internet Radio; and Kevin Liga, CTO of interactive TV company, ACTV.
  • I still say it's a bad idea to allow a patent on just an idea without a 'reference implementation. That would stop these people from patenting ideas and just laying in wait until someone implements your patent, and then you can jump on them.

    If there's not a working implementation of your idea with 12 months, the patent is invalid.

  • RealPlayer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Puk ( 80503 ) on Tuesday October 02, 2001 @04:31PM (#2380342)
    According to the RealNetworks web page, they've been around since 1995. They have been buffering incoming video while letting you play, pause, rewind, fast forward, and jump to live for quite a while. Doing the same to TV doesn't seem to be all that different. Is RealNetworks paying royalties to some company with a patent on it?

    God knows how long their predecessors in streaming video (possibly in research) have been doing similar things. Does anyone have any related info?

    People have been buffering streamed data forever. It's hard to believe (though not impossible) that no one ever paused that stream while still recording before 1992. If they did, this is just a logical extension, and probably not patentable.

    Of course, I'm sure their patent lawyers realize this and did their research and either concluded that 1) no one had done it before or 2) no one would sue them. :)

    -Puk

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