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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.'"
How is this different than ye olde filesystem directory? Does that qualify as prior art?
Me wonders - given SONICBlue's flamboyant flaunting and flouting of The Media interests - and now this patent - could SONICBlue be a media industry trojan horse? Conspiracies, conspiracies everywhere.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
It looks like this thing is practically patenting copying video to a hard drive... so couldn't not only Tivo, but also RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, tons of independant video players, etc. be used as examples of prior art if SonicBlue were to go after anyone with this?
Seems like a pretty weak and unenforcable patent when prior art is EVERYWHERE.
I recall a previous /. article about a little IP-licencing-wannabe company called Pause Technology that held a 1992 patent on the whole DVR idea. Where do they fit in all this?
My spoon is too big!
Interesting how Sonicblue were "good guys" to your average Slashdot goer for fighting the evil entertainment industry...
Then they went and won a patent. Now they're EVIL! How *DARE* they attempt to make money!
end communication
She's got it nailed. I laugh at the
The destruction of patents (even software patents, which at best could stand to have shorter terms) would eliminate virtually all technology investment - the US is so amazingly productive and innovative in large part because of our patent system. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to realize that innovation is caused by a good patent system. If the US abandons or cripples its world-leading patent system, we'll see innovations stagnate, the big companies will totally dominate, and it could take the world economy decades or more to recover.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
PVR are old like hell...
.COM's, you pay to get it and you can get screwed if you don't get all the little bits left and right (like domain.com, mydomain.com dom-ain.com), and even if you do, someone will workaround it (.net .whatever) and you'll have to finish this up in court (only lawyers win)same go if you're legit and if you're stepping on somebody else that can claims anything out of his little left and right bit, you get sued again...
does that mean that if I sell my program I made on my amiga 8 years ago to record TV content with my DPS personnal video recorder, to my hard drive at a precise hour, I'll be breaking this patent?
Yet another stupid patent that shows that Patents are becomming stupid
While I do understand that technological patents are a pain to filter and there's no black and white yes/no approach to them, and that if you're not precise enough, people go around you, if you're overkill and patent every screws in your system, of course you're blocking anything else using the same screws so it's ridiculous, but c'mon... some people are actually PAIED to work this out and THINK about how to manage these issues, it's not our job, but then again, it seems like they aren't doing theirs and it's the rest of us that are penalized.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Honestly, I think it's a good thing that they got this patent. They've made so many bad choices in the last 5 years, that maybe this is what they need to get themselves out of debt. They no longer have a hold in the video card market (read, s3, Diamond). Their share in the portable mp3 player market isn't that impressive anymore since It's been flooded with alternatives that work as well, if not better than theirs. I've used both a TiVo and a ReplayTV, and they're both awesome products. Personally, I'd choose a ReplayTV over a TiVo though. Anyhow, just my $.02
It's overly general. You should be able to patent a specific implementation of a DVR. You should not be able to patent DVRs in general though. Heck, who hadn't already thought of the idea of a DVR way before 1998? It's an obvious idea that was just waiting for computer and hard drive technology to catch up and become cheap enough. You shouldn't be able to patent ideas, only implementations. Imagine where we'd be today if "small computer for personal use" was patented.
Patent swaps are precisely how Intel fucked over Bob Palmer and Digital Equipment Corporation. "GQ Bob" deserved it, but DEC didn't. Intel swiped DEC's branch anticipation technology (which accelerated the VAX9000 by about 30%), then DEC found out and sued, but started losing a bundle because they no longer had a competetive product (because Intel did some "creative outsourcing" of their design process), and finally ended up capitulating to Intel's demands. The Hudson, Mass. fab plant was the football, and by the time it was all over, the place looked like it had been fucked by a bunch of monkeys. Alpha processors weren't being made on time, had shitty yields, and Intel told DEC to go find somebody else because, contract or no, they were damned if they were going to make them.
And, the same thing is happening all over again. Compaq's Wintel Weenies down in Houston (first,
Eckhard Pfieffer and the German Shepards, and now Michael "I'm bright because the sun reflects off my bald spot" Capellas) sold out to Microsoft, Intel, and Carly "Fuck 'em, they're just engineers" Fiorina.
You want some great technology - it's out there - just go steal it. Nobody will stop you. Honest...