TiVo Infringes On Pause Patent

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.

Comments

link to patent

[jamus]

Here's a link to patent in question (RES36801) from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The link was pulled off the pause technology website.

Re:link to patent

[Your Anus]

Here are the actual claims from the patent. Note that the abstract prior to this carries no legal weight.

What is claimed is:

1. In combination,

means for generating a substantially continuous sequence of .[.a.]. digital .[.television.]. input signal values .Iadd.representing an incoming audio or video program signal.Iaddend.,

a source of control commands,

a .[.television.]. .Iadd.program .Iaddend.signal utilization device, and

a variable delay circular storage buffer .Iadd.for storing those of said digital input signal values which were received during the immediately preceding time intervals of predetermined duration, said circular storage buffer .Iaddend.having an input port connected to receive said digital .[.television.]. input signal values and an output port connected to supply a delayed replica of said input signal values to said utilization device following a variable delay interval, the duration of said interval being selectable in response to said control commands, said circular storage buffer comprising, in combination:

an addressable digital memory,

a programmed processor,

memory access means for continuously writing said sequence of digital .[.television.]. input signal values into said addressable digital memory.[.,.]. at a sequence of .Iadd.continually advancing .Iaddend.writing addresses established by said processor .Iadd.to write over the oldest of said input signal values recorded in said digital memory as said sequence of writing addresses are advanced so that said digital input signal values received during said immediately preceding time interval of predetermined duration are stored in said addressable digital memory, .Iaddend.and for concurrently reproducing and supplying to said output port an output sequence of previously written ones of signal values read from said addressable digital memory at a sequence of different reading addresses established by said processor, and

means for supplying said output sequence to said output port,

wherein said programmed processor includes means responsive to said control commands for varying the relative locations of said reading and writing addresses to selectively alter said variable delay interval.

2. The combination set forth in claim 1 wherein said means for generating said input signal values comprises, in combination,

means for receiving an analog .[.television.]. program signal,

an analog-to-digital converter for translating said program signal into

a first sequence of digital values, and

data compression means for translating said first sequence of digital

values into more compact form for storage in said addressable memory,

wherein said combination further comprises data decompression means connected between said output port and said utilization device.

3. The combination as set forth in claim 2 wherein said compression means is responsive to said processor means for varying the compression ratio at which said first sequence of digital values is translated into more compact form.

4. The combination as defined in claim 1 .Iadd.wherein said program signal is a television signal and .Iaddend.wherein one of said control commands is a pause command and wherein said programmed processor further includes means responsive to said pause command for maintaining said reading addresses to repeatedly send a portion of the television signal stored in said memory to said output port.

5. The combination as defined in claim 4 wherein one of said control commands is a playback speed command and wherein said programmed processor further includes means responsive to said playback speed command for altering the rate at which said reading addresses are changed.

6. The combination as defined in claim 4 wherein one of said control commands is a reverse command and wherein said programmed processor further includes means responsive to said playback speed command for altering said reading addresses in a reverse order from the sequence of writing addresses used to store said television input signal to thereby provide a reverse motion television signal to said output port.

7. The combination as defined in claim 1 .Iadd.wherein said program signal is a television signal and .Iaddend.wherein one of said control commands include a replay selection command and wherein said programmed processor further includes means for selectively accessing data at a plurality of different frame addresses stored in said digital memory to form data representing a mosaic of reduced size images, each of said images representing data at a corresponding one of said frame addresses, and wherein said programmed processor further includes means responsive to said replay selection command for setting said reading address to a selected one of said frame addresses identified by said replay selection command.

8. The combination as set forth in claim 7 wherein said compression means includes means responsive to said processor means for varying the compression ratio at which said first sequence of digital values is translated into more compact form. .Iadd.

9. The combination set forth in claim 1 wherein said variable delay circular storage buffer stores one or more incoming signals and wherein said means for concurrently reproducing and supplying to said output port an output sequence of previously written ones of signal values includes means responsive to a user command for selecting a particular one of said one or more incoming signals for reproduction. .Iaddend..Iadd.

10. The combination as set forth in claim 9 further comprising an input unit composed of one or more simultaneously operating signal processors each connected to a source of programming signals for supplying said one or more incoming signals to said storage buffer. .Iaddend.

Re:ATI All In Wonder

[rsborg]

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.

Go to the company's website...

[Cinnamon]

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.

I think this says it all about Pause Technology...

[AX.25]

>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.

Re:Why did they wait so long?

[Washizu]

>Why did they wait so long to file the lawsuit

I wondered the same thing, but after reading the article it says (bold face put in by me):

"The infringed patent, U.S. Patent RE 36,801 (http://www.pausetechnology.com/patent.html), the ``Pause Patent,'' was originally filed in 1992 and issued in 1995. 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 they didn't exactly sit on it for 9 years and then all of a sudden slam TiVo with a lawsuit. I think TiVo's going to have to cough up the fees.

TiVo's patent application: July 27, 1999

[mblase]

Patent #5,930,444

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.

Looks like Tivo already handled it

[latneM]

If you look at A Tivo Patent (6,233,389) 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.

Ask Slashdot: How do I get a patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the slashdot community needs to get a better idea of what is involved in getting a patent, and how to read a patent. The Patent Office has a good site on this. I know slashdotters have an attention span of about 30 seconds so I will summarize.

• Determine the type of patent that is appropriate (design, utility, plant). For technologic innovations, it is typically this is design.
• Fill out the ten sections of the patent app., paying special attention to the claims section as this is all you get legal credit for. You have to have to have a working implementation of whatever you claim, and what you claim cannot be the same as what is already out there or obvious based on what is out there (at the time of the application...not ten years later)
• Pay your money and hope some of your claims are accepted
• Receive rejected application with notes on rejected claims
• Revise and resubmit application (and $$$)

  My take on this is that Mr. Logan and Goessling had a good idea, but too soon. The fact that it cost too much for them to implement the thing in 1996 does not invalidate the patent! And for those whining about needing a limitation on the time to bring a product to market, there is one. It is 16 years, the duration of the patent. It takes time to get the funding to bring a product to market.

Re:Not a patent on "Pausing"

[jeff-wb8wka]

It did. I and another fellow (w8kox) wrote a commodore 64 program to do 30 minute tape delays of Piston basketball games back in 1986 at the local UHF station (WKBD). Used 3 one inch tape machines all controlled via the commodore par port.