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TiVo Issued Additional DVR patents

Posted by timothy on from the patenting-1s-and-0s dept.

LoadStar writes: "In the never ending war of the DVR's (originally covered by slashdot here (1) and here (2)), TiVo was granted 2 more patents today -- they cover TiVo's 'trick play' features -- 'pause live TV as well as rewind, fast forward, play, play faster, play slower, and play in reverse' -- all the features that make a DVR a DVR. Interestingly enough, TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,' a feature that to my knowlege does not currently exist in TiVo products without serious hacking. In related news, SonicBlue announced it would start licensing talks with TiVo, probably believing that the last set of patents granted to them gave them the ammunition necessary to get TiVo to cave and pay a royalty."

7 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Patents and Licensing by kbyrd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The hardware isn't the cost, the software is.

  2. Yeah but... by DutchSter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In a world where it's take 'em or lose 'em, can they really be blamed? Often times products are mass patented like this, only to have reasonable licenses come out in the future to the makers (in this case PVR makers). The idea being that if you don't patent it now, someone else will and screw you out of everything.

    Why should you let someone else screw everyone when you can do it yourself ;)

    I can't say what company I am involved in, but we spend a large amount of our patent money purely on defensive applications. In the end, we don't plan to rape the general public to use it, but we would like to retain rights as the creator.

  3. Ugh, I hope this doesn't ruin Tivo. by reaper20 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tivo is one of those companies that really knows how to hook in their subscribers into a community. For some reason, I don't mind sending Tivo my money. I hope that this doesn't end up being a legal battle that saps Tivo of $$$.

    The Replay 4000 is an outstanding box, but for $99 I can get a 30 hour direcTivo and throw 2 120GB IDE drives in it and get ~230 hours of recording time. The war is over. Long live Tivo.

  4. How does this affect PC's? by alen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A Tivo is nothing more than a dumbed down PC that's programmed for a single task. I wonder how this patent affects PC's with video capture hardware and software included?

  5. Don't networks already do some of this? by Darwin_Frog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What about live broadcasts that have a 10 second delay built in to allow bleeping? Isn't that kind of the same thing? Perhaps I'm off in left field, but if it is, wouldn't there be a prior art case there?

  6. Already Been Done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    how many DVDs do you own where you can't skip the fscking Coke commercial before you watch the flick?

  7. Re:hmmmm...ok....I realy hope Tivo wins by PTBarnum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As was mentioned above, there is often a multi-year delay between the time an invention is made public and the time the patent issues. Other people will see the invention and start using it in the meantime. Are you saying patents should only be awarded for inventions which are too useless for anyone else to adopt?

    The usual grounds for disputing the SDRAM patent is that they unfairly encouraged others to use the patented technology without disclosing their patent. The usual grounds for disputing the oneclick patent is that it is obvious. Neither of these has anything to do with how many people copied the technology, which I find to be an utterly bizarre argument.