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TiVo Sued for Patent Infringement
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."
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?
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
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!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
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
I think not...(*poof*)
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...
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This isn't the only thing Gemstar's done recently that should concern us.
Gemstar also just bought NuvoMedia, the makers of the Rocket eBook platform.
I wonder if they'll be suing Peanut Press next for using an encrypted method of delivering electronic literature?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
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
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Gemstar has been doing this kind of crap for years. They get the bulk of their revenue from patent licenses. Diva and other video on demand companies (like Intertainer) 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 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.
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Klactovedestene!
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.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Actually, the TV Guide arm of News Corp merged with United Video Satellite Group last March to form TV Guide Inc. TV Guide Inc. then merged with Gemstar in October. So you are somewhat correct that News Corp does still have some control.
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.
.sig: Now legally binding!
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)
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
over which TiVo is being sued: Electronic Program Guides
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.
illegitimii non ingravare
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.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
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.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Here is some more information on previous Gemstar suits... http://www.sughrue.com/landfr/9812fr.html
...../......
(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?
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.
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:
4 __
8 __ 6 __ 4 __
8 __ 4 __
8 __
8 __ 4 __
0 __ 1 __ 8 __ 7 __
This one appears interesting because it mentions recording more specifically than the rest:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0594995
These three are for user interfaces:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0547926
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0547926
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0580920
These two are for background schedule systems:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0580860
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0553275
These are for systems with access controls:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0596974
These are for a schedule information transmission:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0579019
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0561927
These are just generic:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0572706
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0535312
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0595968
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0580178
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.
-- haaz.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
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.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
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
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).
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
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.
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
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.
.sig: Now legally binding!
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
US5870150: Television guide reader and programmer
US5886746: Method for channel scanning
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.