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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."
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.
1) They ahve almost everything you can imagine about doing stuff in the cable set top box itself, including some really ridiculous asset injection stuff which is not really even related to an IPG (Interactive Program Guide).
2) DIVA has an IPG that we announced at Western Cable last month. TV Guide (Gemstar) was just about to invest a fair sum of money in us, and then immediately backed out when we would not pull our IPG from the show.
3) We don't infringe on their patents by doing it all on the server.
4) Heck yea, we patented everything we could, lest Gemstar patent it first.
5) Gemstar currently has a lock on the IPG market. Scientific Atlanta's SARA is being pretty much discontinued, I believe, because of the patent infringements. Since Gemstar and TV Guide merged they're the only interactive program guide available, nowadays, and they charge MSOs (your cable companies) a fortune so YOU can have an inferior guide.
6) Gemstar will win this in court, from everything I've heard. The patents are solid, and unfortunately there is big legal precedent for stupid patents of this nature.
-- Merlin/Earl