SONICblue Granted Broad Patent on DVR Technology

hayb writes: "In another miscue from the U.S. Patent office, Sonicblue has received a patent for everything under the PVR sun. Now comes the question if they will go after others, or at least Tivo. To quote the first line of the patent: 'USPTO patent number 6,324,338 also covers methodology that creates, names, prioritizes and manages recorded programs on the hard drive for DVRs.'"

Comments

oh the irony,

[terpia]

I love the fact that patent wars might erupt between the PVR folks while at the same time theyre battling copyright wars with everyone else....Damn, I love capitalism ;)

Actually...

[sterno]

I'd be very surprised if a lawsuite comes out of this except as a tactic to leverage a little better price on patent royalties. Sonicblue will give Tivo a call that goes a little something like this:

Sonicblue: Hi, Tivo, we were thinking you might want to license this patent from us for $X.

Tivo: But that's not a valid patent, we've been doing that for years.

Sonicblue: Well, you can fight us if you'd like. I'm sure your lawyers will only charge you 10-100 times $X.

Tivo: hmmmm... okay, where do we send the money. We can always pass the cost on to the customer anyhow