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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
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.
You are speaking of two different things. Patents are designed to protect the inventor (as your quote from Ms. Bowles implies), but you go on to criticize the /. community for pointing out that patents shouldn't be awarded when the "innovation" is obvious or follows prior art.
Patents are actually the tools used by Microsoft and others to stomp on everyone they feel like. They--unlike the inventor--have an army of lawyers who know the weaknesses of the Examination process at the P.T.O.
Your assertion about the cause of innovation is 100% erroneous. I don't recall hearing of Leonardo DaVinci's numerous patents, nor the numerous patents awarded to the ancient Egyptians for "a process of stacking 20,000+ lb blocks of stone in the sand to form a giant pyramid", or the ancient Mayans for "a device which indicates the vernal equinox by allowing the sun's rays to illuminate a wall". Innovation is the direct result of human will, which our patent system appears to be smothering by allowing Megacorps to hoard patents for everything under the sun.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
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.
Also, patents to have limited duration--eventually the work reverts to the public domain. The secret of making half-silvered mirrors was jealously guarded in Europe for years, retarding the development of optics.
This is an excellent point I didn't make in the interest of brevity.
I think the real only problem with patents, especially software and computer patents, is that the pace of development has so far outstripped the term of the patents.
Personally, I'd like to see some sort of self-regulating system that would adjust the length of all patents issued in any particular field between 5 and 20 years, inversely proportional to the number of patents granted in that field over the past twelve months. Five years seems long enough for even the fast moving stuff (remember it needs to be long enough to recover R&D costs and make some money), 20 should be enough for the slow-moving stuff. Such a system also fights abuse, since big companies that file lots of patents just because they can (IBM, anyone?) would find that such a practice is self-defeating, and devalues their important patents. Also, it tends to favor original inventors that bring true innovation, while devaluing the fruits of the system for those that seek to profit by simply filing lots of patents late to "get a piece of the action". If those patents are shorter, the incentive to abuse the system is considerably less. It's key that such a self-regulator be pegged to patents *granted* rather than patents *filed* - that way, the term changes only kick in if there's innovation sufficient to be patentable in the first place. (If terms were tied to filings, malicious groups could "poison the waterhole" for everyone...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last