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Patents

TiVo Issued Additional DVR patents 207

Posted by timothy from the patenting-1s-and-0s dept.
LoadStar writes: "In the never ending war of the DVR's (originally covered by slashdot here (1) and here (2)), TiVo was granted 2 more patents today -- they cover TiVo's 'trick play' features -- 'pause live TV as well as rewind, fast forward, play, play faster, play slower, and play in reverse' -- all the features that make a DVR a DVR. Interestingly enough, TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,' a feature that to my knowlege does not currently exist in TiVo products without serious hacking. In related news, SonicBlue announced it would start licensing talks with TiVo, probably believing that the last set of patents granted to them gave them the ammunition necessary to get TiVo to cave and pay a royalty."
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TiVo Issued Additional DVR patents More

TiVo Issued Additional DVR patents

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  • in a perfect world.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by amed01 ( 540931 )
    .. we'd offer to share our knowledge with others to better the human race as a whole.. but who are we kidding?
  • it seems like lately, the news around here has been stuck on pause, with an occasional rewind or two thrown in for good measure.

    -hemos.
  • With the licensing that TIVO is going to ram down every PVR makers throat, it is going to keep the prices of PVRs inflated for may years to come. The hardware and software (Linux) these machines hardly accounts for their current cost. Once I see a PVR cost a reasonable ammount for the hardware I am buying I might buy one. I will be cold and dead before I spend $400 for a 60gb hard drive, a RISC processor and a MPEG2 decoder.

    • Re:Patents and Licensing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by kbyrd ( 68962 )
      The hardware isn't the cost, the software is.
    • This is particularly true when the software and hardware exist to do this on your own PC. I'll spend my own $150 on nearly the same specs (or, more probable, pull them out of my closet) and create my own recorder.
      • I've thought the same thing, but I'll be damned if I can put together that hardware for $150 (without resorting to the closet).

        If you want to create your own recored, go ahead and do that (may have some problems trying to sell it...). The biggest thing TIVO and ReplayTV have going for them is that anyone can use it. Remember, 50% of the people out there are below average!

      • Re:Patents and Licensing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tmhsiao ( 47750 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:32PM (#2688905) Homepage Journal
        This is particularly true when the software and hardware exist to do this on your own PC. I'll spend my own $150 on nearly the same specs (or, more probable, pull them out of my closet) and create my own recorder.


        As much as some software may exist to do this on your own PC, TiVo's software is extremely advanced. The number of features that the TiVo software can provide would require numerous man-months of development on your own time should you wish to throw together a $150 unit.

        For starters, there's the software to download scheduling information, the software to present said information visually, the elements which allow you to automatically record shows based on cast members, directors, keywords, or any other item included in that schedule information; components that take care of the timed recording of scheduled (and sometimes unscheduled) shows, the components which allow you to watch a program and record up to two others simultaneously (with DirecTiVo).

        Were I to develop the software to do everything that my TiVo can on the PC sitting in my closet, I'd probably dedicate a good 9-18 months perfecting it.
    • Just to be fair, TIVO is just the latest PVR company to get some patents issued. ReplayTv also had a set of patents (ok, maybe only 1) issued a few weeks ago.

      And don't forget that your $400 also covers the software to control the thing. While for most /. readers, the UI of something doesn't matter (have you seen the UI on most open source projects?), it is important for mass appeal (so even my grandmother could use it). And there is some cost associated there.

      Bah, damn hardware people always think that software comes for free and that the hardware is the only real cost.
    • And I will be cold and dead before I pay $400 for a 60gb hd, a RISC processor, and MPEG2 decoder, and a copy of Linux.
      • Don't forget the MPEG-2 encoder (for standalone units) and the modem. And the control software.

        And remember, TIVO really has very little to do with the hardware (besides maybe specification). They are really a software company. They wrote the software that controls all that hardware, and let other people (Sony, Phillips, etc.) build the hardware. I'm sure TIVO wishes they could get the hardware price down as well, but I don't think they have quite enough volume yet to convince those HW manufacturers to take a smaller profit margin.

        • Re:Patents and Licensing (Score:4, Informative)

          by Zaknafein500 ( 303608 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:19PM (#2689193) Homepage
          • I'm sure TIVO wishes they could get the hardware price down as well, but I don't think they have quite enough volume yet to convince those HW manufacturers to take a smaller profit margin.
          TiVo is in the hardware business in about the same way as nVidia is in the hardware business. TiVo creates the reference designs and the software, then contracts the work out to 3rd parties. TiVo even grants subsidies to its hardware manufacturers to keep the price of the units as low as they are. TiVo actually loses money on the sale of its PVRs, expecting to recoup the losses in subscriptions.

          TiVo has introduced a new form factor with the DirecTiVos and the new AT&TiVo box that is being sold through AT&T Broadband. This new form factor is much cheaper to produce. Consequently, you can find DirecTiVos for under $100, sometimes less than $50. The AT&TiVo box is still around $300 for a 40-hour, but this is still quite a bit cheaper than what you would pay for a 40-hour standalone under the old form factor. The new box also has USB ports, so future networking upgrades are a (although somewhat distant) possibility.
    • Guys,

      Circuit City has been selling the Sony and Philips Directivo's for $99!!

      These things ARE cheap.
      • In what world? I just bought the Phillips for essentially retail, because they were charging an Arm and a leg for the Sony. If you can give me a cite or a link, I can get some of those yankee bucks back. PLEASE, if there is a $90 Tivo out there at Circuit City or a competitor, post it by all means.
        • Check out The Tivo forums [tivocommunity.com]. There is alot of information there.

          Its a Directivo, and there are some issues. Mine came with a "defective" remote, that Philips replaced in about a week.

          I basically walked in to a Circuit City, scoped them out, and found out about the price. I am already a DirecTV subscriber, so that wasn't an issue. New subs get a free installation.

          Three nights later I'm 'taping' Dolby Digital 5.1 movies from Starz East. Heh.
        • PLEASE, if there is a $90 Tivo out there at Circuit City or a competitor, post it by all means.

          TiVo's Special Offers page [tivo.com] has numerous units ranging from $49.99 (for new DirecTV subscribers--or $79.99 for existing subscribers) to $299.99.
        • I just bought the Hughes Directv Tivo box from Circuit Shitty. $94. Personally, I am paying the $10/month for the Tivo service because I like it.
          Remote kinda sucks but the functionality of the unit rules. Plugged the optical TOS Link into the stereo and now I am watching movies in Dolby Digital. Really nice unit.

          Go to www.circuitcity.com [circuitcity.com] and search for "GXCEBOTD".

    • How about $450 for 150G? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's $250 promotional procing that's available for a 30 hour unit, and $199 for a 120G drive at Fry's.

      It's Linux, and if they don't encourage hacking the units, they certainly tolerate it. Besides, it's cool to get a bash prompt on a piece of off-the-shelf equipment. Cooler still to support a company that uses Linux.

      There's still the $10/month or $200 lifetime programming fee, but even so, it's worth it.

      We've had ours for 18+ months and don't know what we'd do without it now. My folks are getting one (just the 30-hour version; we can always add a hard drive later) for Christmas.

      Sure you could build something similar. But that'd be a lot of effort to save at most a couple hundred dollars and have a less polished result. I don't know about you, but it doesn't take much of my time to be able to justify the extra money involved. Especially when I want to relax and watch TV, not chase about inside gdb debugging why Friends caused a core dump.
    • will be cold and dead before I spend $400 for a 60gb hard drive, a RISC processor and a MPEG2 decoder.

      Why would this even be an option for you? Do what every other self-respecting geek does and find a discontinued or refurbed one for about 90-150$US.

      You *ARE* just going to take the thing apart the minute you get it, right??
      Since you are going to hack it, it doesn't matter that you get the latest/greatest. You will void the warranty anyway, so it doesn't matter. Just fire it up once to test it, then slap 2 100GB HD inside of it, add a NIC, and whatever else you feel like fiddling with, and you have a cheap solution.
      (The only thing that adds to the cost are the HD's, but you would have bought those anyway. Or slap the new HDs in your computer and swap/use the older drives in the TiVo.)

  • Mutual Patent Sharing (Score:1, Redundant)

    by McBeth ( 1724 )
    If these guy had any sense they would do what has worked so well in other sectors. Share the patents with each-other, then use them to keep everybody else out. The one that pops into my mind is the strangle hold two companies had on lasik surgery for a while. That is why they used to cost 10k+ a year. It has been done before, and is being done all the time.

    • Actually, it's highly likely that both TiVo and SonicBlue are patenting everything can as a defensive tactic as much as they are doing it as a revenue source. Essentially, in cases like this, the players wind up cross-licensing each others' patents for nothing (or nearly nothing). It's only when somebody new tries to enter the market and has no patents to trade, that the patent holders actually see any income from their patents.

  • I think I should have gotten a patent on letting others watch TV. So any company hereafter that creates devices which let others watch TV must pay royalties to me, or I will sue their pants off.

  • Licensing talks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aron_wallaker ( 93905 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @02:54PM (#2688660)
    What will likely happen in the licensing talks is that they'll (eventually) cross-license to get access to each other's patents - it happens all the time with 'mature' companies.

    After all, a nice profitable duopoly is way better than a prolonged legal battle where the lawyers get everyone's money in the end.

  • Goodbye small players in that market! (Score:5, Informative)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @02:57PM (#2688675) Homepage
    Okay, so Tivo will license to Sonicblue in exchange for Sonicblue licensing to Tivo. So in the end, they'll reach a push because it's in both their best interests to establish this mutual licensing.

    The problem though is that small players are going to be screwed because they will have to negotiate with and pay two seperate companies for the licensing rights to that technology. So we can expect that for the forseeable future we will only have Tivo, ReplayTV, and any other big players who can afford to pay the licenses (Microsoft, etc).

    So why do we have patents again? I keep forgetting...

    • Re:Goodbye small players in that market! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:02PM (#2688719) Homepage Journal
      So why do we have patents again? I keep forgetting...

      So large companies, like Microsoft, don't use other peoples ideas to create an extremely similar product with one more wizzbang and take the original company out of business (ReplayTV).
      Now MS can't remove TiVo, cause they will have to pay a royalty.

      Patents are to protect the little people. TiVo is (or was) a little person, and they applied for their patents WHEN they were a little person. This is a patent that is valid in my eyes.

      For all of you that ask "Why do we have patents", I'd like you to invent something... then watch a big company make a profit on it while you sit and try to feed your family. The whole idea was made with the right things in mind. Sure the people who work in the patent office are a touch off, but the idea behind patents is not.

      If we didn't have patents, you'd be praying for them.
      • Patents are to protect the little people.

        If this is true, why do companies like IBM hold so many patents? In fact, IBM gets about a third of its revenue from patent royalties! And they're hardly alone at this game -- just the most successful.

        Although patents can protect the little guy, that's not the way it usually happens. They just help the big get bigger, and give them a tool to pry inventions away from the little guys.

        -Ed
        • Companies like IBM and Microsoft likely have large groups dedicated to the research and acquisition of existing patents...
        • That's because IBM, Bell Labs, Microsoft, Xerox, Intel and a few other companies spend billions of their own dollars to research new products and technologies. Now if someone could just steal their ideas and make money off them where would the incentive be to invent something new? They wouldn't have new money to invest in research and there would be no more R&D.

          What have you invented lately on your own time?
      • Patents are to protect the little people

        Anyone else getting tired of this urban legend doing rounds ad infinitum?

        On the other hand, it's nice that dwarves and midgets do have at least some legal protection in this cruel world.

    • That's exactly backwards . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

      by werdna ( 39029 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:20PM (#2688818) Journal
      The vast majority of patent cases are fought between the small to mid-sized company against much larger entities. Patents are the vehicle by which small and mid-sized companies --like TiVo--can effectively compete on an equal playing field with their much larger, better capitalized competitors.

      It is what drives venture money to support start ups for companies founded by dudes with big ideas, and without which, nobody would ever want to be first to market with a big-R&D project.

      Behemoth Microsoft is the perpetual defendant, not plaintiff, in these cases. It is the agile, flexible, upstarts who tend to benefit from the patent system, not the monoliths.

      How does a tiny company win entry into the "cross-licensing" wars? That's easy, build some serious incremental inventions that improve the technology, and draft your own patent application. Yes, the newly "big boys" will try, at first, to toss you about -- and yes, they will be able to keep you at bay for awhile. But remember, there will be two companies cross-licensing their patents one against each other. If your technology is any good, the one who deals with you first wins! This means that both have to deal with you and guess what? Your good technology generates opportunity and value.

      This is what mid-sized Japanese companies did to American consumer electronics in the 70s through the 80s. You decide for yourself who had the edge, those with the foundation patents, or those with the new technologies covered by blocking patents?

      Great companies, big and small can be players --ALWAYS-- if they have: (1) technology and (2) savvy. It is true that cheesy, non-technology contributing companies cannot freeload off of the work of those who went before them and compete against TiVo with only TiVo's technology. The benefit of rewarding people who productize and bring to us the PVR as these guys did far outweighs the social costs of the marginal markups.

      TiVos are cheap -- very cheap compared to their value. And they are excellent products that have been far more savvy about and friendly to their hacker communities than other counterparts. They deserve all they can milk form this.
      • "The vast majority of patent cases are fought between the small to mid-sized company against much larger entities. Patents are the vehicle by which small and mid-sized companies --like TiVo--can effectively compete on an equal playing field with their much larger, better capitalized competitors. "

        Do you have data for this, anecdotal or otherwise? It certainly seems to me that is much more often the opposite: big companies suing the little ones. Big companies used to be the only guys that filed patents. Since the patent explosion of the 90s though, everybody's been doing it.

        Bryan
        • Do you have data for this, anecdotal or otherwise?

          lot's of it. But here are a few data points. The largest software arts patent verdict was STAC v. Microsoft, >$110M for STAC (and a $10M counterclaim for Microsoft in return).

          Outside software arts are the famous cases of Jerry Lemelson, who got huge verdicts from Ford and other players with his greater than 500-strong patent portfolio.

          Other cases that come to mind involve upstart Amazon versus big brick and mortar Barnes & Noble. And of course there's Eolas v. Microsoft, Priceline v. Microsoft, and so it goes. Apple bought itself some space (and cash) by settling its patent case against Microsoft days after Jobs rejoined.

          Big companies used to be the only guys that filed patents.

          Hardly. The independent inventor movement is and has been one of the most significant political forces driving the patent system. Although it is true that the Fortune 500 is littered with big companies that derived from little guys inventive and patented successes that allowed small and mid-sized companies to grow large.
    • So we can expect that for the forseeable future we will only have Tivo, ReplayTV, and any other big players who can afford to pay the licenses (Microsoft, etc).

      So why do we have patents again?

      Patents serve the purpose of rewarding research and creativeness. They allow you to bust your ass doing research and in return you are guarenteed that for a few years nobody is going to steal your idea. After your time is up, everybody else gets a shot at it.

      Do you have a better plan?
      • One way to make the system better is that for a 6 month period after a patent is officially issued, permit people to submit evidence of prior art. After the 6 month period, the prior art submissions would be reviewed by a commitee at the patent office for validity, rendering a decision of the patent's validity shortly thereafter.

        The problem is that there currently exists no review process other than filing a lawsuit. That's expensive, potentially very protracted, and slanted in favor of those who can afford the biggest legal teams.
  • TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,'

    In other news:
    Budweiser patents a simple method of connecting storage devices to a personal computer or workstation.

    1. As timothy pointed out, TiVo don't have anything that does this
    2. Other things like ethernet webcams already do this
    Don't companies ever check for prior art any more?
    • FF/RW/Pause????? Has the guys at TiVo even looked at the UPnP A/V spec? It defines exactly that... And the TV is listed as a content directory, so FF/RW/Pause of Live-TV is already covered.

      And connecting these devices together? Eh? Have they ever heard of UPnP? Heck, even 1394 lets you do that.
    • TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,'

      Other things like ethernet webcams already do this

      Show me one ethernet webcam that connects TiVo DVRs to a network.

  • DIsh Network's RealPlayer (same as Tivo) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have DISH Network as a satalite provider. I have a RealPlayer from them that has the same exact features and capabilites as a Tivo. My question is... is it possible to hack that box to have network connectivity? Purpose of this would be to view the recorded sessions over the network, prefferably a computer. If anyone has any ideas, please post.

  • Old News... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by zerocool^ ( 112121 )

    This has already been covered both here [slashdot.org] and here [theage.com.au].

  • Can't patents be overturned? Pardon my ignorance, but I thought that if prior art can be found a lawsuit can get the patent overturned. Does this happen? Is there a reason /. doesn't cover these lawsuits?

    • In addition to using lawsuits to over turn patents, opposing attorney's can also initiate a reexam process. Of course, this only results in attorney's fees of a couple thousand dollars. So most lawyers don't go this route since litigating a patent claim can easily generate millions of dollars of revenue. Here's a site which talks about the process: Reexamination - How does a bad patent get invalidated? [baypatents.com]
    • Can't patents be overturned? Pardon my ignorance, but I thought that if prior art can be found a lawsuit can get the patent overturned. Does this happen? Is there a reason /. doesn't cover these lawsuits?

      Patents have been overturned previously. In the early 90's, Compton was awarded a patent for what essentially amounted to "Multimedia software." It was later overturned...
    • Can't patents be overturned? Pardon my ignorance, but I thought that if prior art can be found a lawsuit can get the patent overturned.

      Because doing this is very time consuming and expensive. Especially when you consider that people are taking a "shotgun" approach to filing patents and the USPO effectivly appears to be rubber stamping the applications.
      So you wouldn't have one lawsuit you'd have 10, 50, 100, etc...
  • TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,'

    Wonder what Tridge has to say about this?

  • Ugh, I hope this doesn't ruin Tivo. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by reaper20 ( 23396 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:00PM (#2688703) Homepage
    Tivo is one of those companies that really knows how to hook in their subscribers into a community. For some reason, I don't mind sending Tivo my money. I hope that this doesn't end up being a legal battle that saps Tivo of $$$.

    The Replay 4000 is an outstanding box, but for $99 I can get a 30 hour direcTivo and throw 2 120GB IDE drives in it and get ~230 hours of recording time. The war is over. Long live Tivo.

    • 2 120 GB drives, AND a 30 hour direcTivo??? Sign me up!

      I think you're totally negating the cost of the HD's there, bucko.


    • I agree the Replay 4xxx series is overpriced, but the auto commercial skipping and computer connectivity is cool. Right now Tivo can't touch that except for an ethernet hack if I recall.

      I have a Replay 3030. Love it. Got it cheap from a stupid net merchant. Got a backup of the HD so if the drive blows up I can renew the box. I intend to have this gadget for a loooooong time.
  • Are there currently any projects that are working on the software necessary to roll your own DVR?
  • If this means that next-generation TiVo's will include a way to download shows via ethernet built-in, this is very good news.
  • if only because digital is rarely used for this simple purpose. These days, companies plaster the word "digital" onto everything but breakfast cereal (cross your fingers on that one). Yet few everyday gadgets actually harness the cut-and-paste nature of digital data.

  • How does this affect PC's? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:07PM (#2688746)
    A Tivo is nothing more than a dumbed down PC that's programmed for a single task. I wonder how this patent affects PC's with video capture hardware and software included?
    • What about that "dumbed down PC" that reads swiped cards, or the "dumbed down PC" known as XBox, Nintendo, Playstation, or that "dumbed down PC" that is in your car?

      I think the term "specialized computer" may be better used, but everything electronic is a dumbed down computer of some type....

      So I don't see the validity of your question...
    • The wording of the patent [delphion.com] seems to indicate they are patenting the buffering to disk of live broadcasts in a "virtual segment within a continuous stream which moves forward in time with the stream" (their wording). Specifically named features of this patent include: "rewind", "Pause", "frame advance", and "fast forward", but they don't limit it to just those features.

  • Why is everyone angry? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:09PM (#2688759) Homepage Journal
    TiVo came up with a great idea, had lots of people copying them, made a patent and won it. Now they are making money on their idea, work GREAT with the community (even allow the mods, and all the updates, they try and keep the mods in mind), and sell their service very inexpensively. And everyone is complaining?

    I'm happy for TiVo (especially, because I'm a proud TiVo owner).
    • because they're patenting what a VCR already does.

    • They're patenting the obvious goal, not the means (Score:5, Insightful)

      by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy AT stogners DOT org> on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:59PM (#2689061) Homepage
      When I think "patent", images of patent drawings for drill bits are the first association that comes to mind for me... which is the product of a professor who had *scary* levels of experience in the oil industry, but which will serve as a good example in this case.

      Patents for drill bits cover *implementation* ideas. Perhaps this patent isn't for a solid bit, but rather one that has three conical rotating parts on sleeve bearings. Perhaps that one isn't for a pure tungsten carbide surface, but rather one that uses tungsten carbide to hold diamond grains in place. Implementation details.

      If anyone had tried to patent "getting oil out of the ground" instead, they would have been laughed to death. If you were a tool bit manufacturer, you licensed patented ideas because they were faster, cheaper, or more reliable, not because they were the only way to do the job.

      So that's the first problem I have with software patents: they tend to patent the job, not just one way to do it. If your PVR idea uses a fast general purpose CPU instead of a specific MPEG encoder chip, if it uses MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2, or if it's not even a physical product but instead just a software package you run on your computer with tuner card... well, even if you don't resemble Tivo at all in implementation, you probably fall under their patents for just solving the same problem of "pausing live TV".

      The second problem is that they're patenting the obvious. Given the question, "how would you make it possible to pause live TV", exactly what percentage of Slashdot readers do you think would be unable to figure it out? Implementing it would probably be beyond the reach of most of us... but if Tivo were patenting their implementation, I'd expect to see source code in the patent.

      Tivo thought of a new market. That's a wonderful thing, but should they be allowed a 17-year monopoly in it because of it?

  • First off, please pardon my ignorance. I'm sure I'm wrong here somewhere, and this post is more of a question than a statement.

    Couldn't some sort of antitrust or similar unfair business practices suit be brought against either of these companies for intentionally waiting until after a PVR market has built up to patent their "inventions", thereby creating a secondary business model for themselves that exploits their entire market? If either of these companies were legitimately patenting their "inventions", wouldn't they have filed their patents long before a market of similar products and businesses had sprung up?

    And on another thought... can't these patents be easily overturned, anyway? There must be some reason why neither Atari, Mattel, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, or Microsoft has been able to successfully patent "a console system primarily used for playing proprietary gaming software".

    Any lawyers here, by any chance? I vaguely remembered Slashdot having a few regular lawyers that sounded pretty credible.

    • Uhhh
      They file for patents during development. It just takes years for patents to be awarded.

      That said, the answer is pretty much no....it wouldnt be antitrust........DVR is not enough of a market.........the video recording industry is.

      Thats like saying Apple is a monopoly.......not really, they are a small manufacturer out of all the PC manufactueres, they just do their stuff different.

      That said, DVR is an alternative to VHS......if a DVR manufacturer ends up having all the patents, its not nessecarly a monopoly.
    • Tivo and SonicBlue didn't "wait until after a PVR market had built up" to file for their patents, it just that they weren't granted until now. You can't patent something that you publically released or even demo'd. That's why so many things say "Patent Pending" on them.

      If Tivo and SonicBlue entered into a mutual liscensing agreement, they would have to craft the terms carefully to avoid anti-trust laws. But I think it could be done.

    • Re:Antitrust? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Artagel ( 114272 )
      There can be quite a stretch between when a technology is invented or marketed and when a patent issues. For the type of technology for TIVO, I would expect at 15-18 month period before the patent office even looked at the application. Then you get into 3-6 month cycles of the patent office acting and the inventor responding. It is not at all unusual for patents to take 2.5-3.5 years to issue after application.

      In the US, you have 1 year after you make your invention public to get the application on file. (The US system emphasizes getting the product to the public over getting a quick patent filing -- most of the rest of the world has the opposite emphasis.) A credible timeline could look like:

      1) First player offered for sale (day 1)

      2) Patent application filed (year one)

      3) Patent application read by patent office (year 2.5)

      4) Patent issues (year 4.5)

      That would be a credible timeline if the inventor didn't have to fight tooth and nail to get the patent. Things can be a year shorter in easy cases, or much longer in hard cases.

      One of the patent applications was filed in April 1998, the other in August of 1997. So we are dealing with 3.5-4.25 years. It looks to me like they got their applications on file and got them allowed in a reasonably quick time.

      Submarine patents aren't an issue any more, because the duration of a patent is determined by the filing date, not the issue date. (International harmony and lessons learned owing to the practices of Jerome Lemelson made for that change)

  • Patents .. cruncy .. good with ketchup (Score:3, Informative)

    by b0rken ( 206581 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:30PM (#2688876) Homepage
    Let's see .. playing a media stream at varying speeds. In MPEG video, it's moderately complex to skip frames, but I would be surprised if it were not discussed in mpeg literature for use in systems which cannot decode the full stream in realtime, but must instead decode every Nth frame (N=2-4). Playing more slowly just involves showing a frame for more than one retrace. Any decent MPEG player should already have frameskip control, and wiring a timebase multiplier to a UI knob is not rocket science.

    Playing and recording at the same time is a simple matter of having a multitasking OS, a disk fast enough to handle the bandwidth of two streams, and separate encoder/decoder hardware.

    As for "connecting DVRs to a network in the home", DVRs are just another piece of network hardware. Streaming media technology is probably the subject of patents that precede DVRs. Besides, the hard parts of streaming are when bandwidth is scarse, which isn't the case over ethernet (2mbps wireless excepted)

    Playing backwards is a little more complex than playing forward at variable rate, but again most DVD players have this capability. This patent has a April 1998 application date, but DVDs date [dvdangle.com] to 1995 ("December 09, 1995: The final DVD format is originally announced.") Since DVDs are streams of video, the capabilities of DVDs to manipulate the order in which the stream is presented seem relevant. Surely "play in reverse" wasn't missing from DVD for their first two years of existence..

    Other posters have discussed how SonicBlue and TiVO will probably cross-license, and the patents wouldn't stand up to scrutiny anyway, so the only thing they'll be good for is to raise the bar against additional participants in the DVR market (those who don't have deep-enough pokets to withstand a lawsuit, which means any startup...) and maybe to furnish C&D-letter fodder for OpenDVR software projects.

  • Patenting the methods, not the idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zutroy ( 542820 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @03:30PM (#2688887) Homepage
    The idea of pausing live TV is obvious.

    But the actual method that the TiVo developers used to accomplish this isn't. And that is what they are patenting.

    And before anyone says that the method IS obvious, remember, in hindsight, everything's pretty obvious.

    • Re:Patenting the methods, not the idea (Score:5, Informative)

      by spectecjr ( 31235 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:59PM (#2689452) Homepage
      The idea of pausing live TV is obvious.
      But the actual method that the TiVo developers used to accomplish this isn't. And that is what they are patenting.

      And before anyone says that the method IS obvious, remember, in hindsight, everything's pretty obvious.

      Sliding Window algorithms for the storage of streaming data are pretty damn obvious. They're documented everywhere. In Knuth. In the TCP/IP spec.

      EVERYWHERE.

      The only conceivably 'new' thing about this is that it's being used to store MPEG datastreams. I don't particularly count that as innovative or 'new'. Or patentable.
  • What about live broadcasts that have a 10 second delay built in to allow bleeping? Isn't that kind of the same thing? Perhaps I'm off in left field, but if it is, wouldn't there be a prior art case there?
    • If I made my own Tivo-like system at home, and used it, would I be infringing?
    • If I bought a Tivo from someone else and used it, would I be infringing?
    • If I bought a Tivo from someone else and hacked it, would I be infringing (patent law, forget the DMCA or other law)?
    • If I bought a Tivo from someone else and then made my own (and used it), would I be infringing?
    • If I bought a Tivo directly and then hacked it, would I be infringing?
    • If I bought a Tivo directly and then made my own (and used it), would I be infringing?
  • Anyone else notice Tivo's new strategy? First came an "Important Message" that you have to look at before accessing the menu. Previously, this meant announcements like the enabling of dual-tuners.

    This last time, it was announcing a contest wherein if you watch Lexus ads, you can get entered into a contest to win a Lexus.

    Now, they've started adding pre-taped video segments (filling up my hard drive, I assume) of BMW ads.

    How soon before we're forced to watch TV show previews before we get to access the Now Playing List?
  • Other than being in a neat and tidy consumer package I don't see a lot that Tivo or Replay do that hasn't been in a professional editing and presentation equiptment. At least when you look at the basics. Think Monday Night Football. Pause, Fast-Forward, Rewind, Slo-mo all in a tidy digital package. No comercial skip though.

    Don't get me wrong, there may be some specific PVR functions both Tivo and Replay have valid patents for. But from the looks of things it will be a wash if they try to sue each other. Both companies would be better off entering into a cross lisencing agreement and let the better product/marketing win. Instead I can see Tivo and Replay tossing tons of subscriber money down the Toilet we call corporate law, thus depriving consumers of good R&D.
  • I realy do not have a problem with patents as long as they make sence and are awarded to a company that has a product that uses the patant (and it is the only one or one of a a small few.

    I do not like patents awared for things that have become widly used in the industry, like the rambus SDRAM dispute or the oneclick crap.

    Tivo being awarded the patens would be nice since they pioneered the industry.
    • As was mentioned above, there is often a multi-year delay between the time an invention is made public and the time the patent issues. Other people will see the invention and start using it in the meantime. Are you saying patents should only be awarded for inventions which are too useless for anyone else to adopt?

      The usual grounds for disputing the SDRAM patent is that they unfairly encouraged others to use the patented technology without disclosing their patent. The usual grounds for disputing the oneclick patent is that it is obvious. Neither of these has anything to do with how many people copied the technology, which I find to be an utterly bizarre argument.
  • Hypothetically, that I go out and grab a couple of WinTV cards and a TV-Out card. I hack up some software that lets me tune, record while watching, pause and all that stuff that the Tivo does. None of it is really all that hard when you get right down to it. As far as I can tell, I can snarf the channel guide right off TVGuide.com too. Is anything I've done up to that point covered by these patents? How about when I release the software under the GPL?

  • Real Time Fast Forward (Score:3, Funny)

    by smz420 ( 308094 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:30PM (#2689256)
    Now if Tivo only had a Real Time fast forward capability, I'd take up sports gambling as a profession.

  • Please Consider...... Before you slam...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NoCrypto ( 323595 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:32PM (#2689266)

    Tivo doesn't make the patent rules, you (the voter) do. Unfortunately (for them) they still need to play by those rules, which don't favor small companies enough in most cases.

    Far from raking in the dough, Tivo is keeping prices low, while losing money. (For the 3 months ended 10/31/2001, revenues were 5,342; after tax earnings were -33,838.)

    You would be hard pressed to find a cheaper way of creating a tivo like system, of comparable performance, from commercially available parts. Jumpy video in the window of a crashing pc isn't the same.

    Tivo is licensing, so development can and will continue!

    The Tivo service has been very unobtrusive to me so far. I'd gladly watch 1 targeted commercial at my convenience a month to help them out.

    I've always thought that the "Everything you ever wanted to know about product X channel" would be a great idea. It would be nice to be able to get a real professional sales video about all of the features of that new car that you might want to buy ON DEMAND. Tivo just figured out how to use the DEAD AIR in the middle of the night to make the cost of such a channel acceptable.

    I want to be able to select something like:
    Product Videos -> Cars -> BMW -> 325 -> (BMW, Car & Driver, Road & Track) and watch 3 videos on the new 325 series at my convenience. I win, BMW wins, and Tivo wins. What's the problem?

    Same thing with vacation destinations, digital cameras, etc. Anything where a static page of info just isn't enough.

  • As a former tek employee, I can tell you most of these so-called patents have significant prior art developed for the Tektronix Profile system, now owned by the Grass Valley [grassvalleygroup.com].

    "Slow playback" ?? How the hell do you think all those slow-mo replays are done on Monday Night Football anyway? Sheez.

    • "How the hell do you think all those slow-mo replays are done on Monday Night Football anyway? Sheez."

      I always thought that they just made the hamsters providing the power run at half speed. My bad!

      (sorry for the bad joke)
  • I love these things, I can now watch the spice channel the way I want it. A girl goes down on another girl SLOW! A guy unzips his pants FAST FORWARD! CowboyNeal takes off his pants, REPLAY!

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