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TiVo sues EchoStar for Patent Infringement
jhkoh writes "TiVo has filed a lawsuit against satellite TV provider EchoStar for infringing on its 'Time Warp' patent for DVR time-shifting. TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay adds: 'Our aim here is not to litigate everybody ... but to further advance and seek commercial relationships so that people recognize the value of our intellectual property, and give us fair compensation.'"
So does this mean they'll be taking a SCO approach and be going after whomever inherited ReplayTV and other companies with DVR's on the market? Or even those OSS apps that make your Linux box into a DVR?
It's a shame because I like Tivo alot but saying you're not wanting to litigate people while suing them seems kinda silly.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
It's about time Slashdot picked up on this. So does this make Tivo a bad guy now? Probably more important though is the effect this might have on the open source time-shifting software out there.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Hi and color me biased but Charlie Ergen and Echostar built my business only to tear it apart. I was a C-Band dealer for years (Echostar was primary wholsaler) and had a great business only to see them introduce "Dish" that was not available to the dealers that had made them a success.
I have seen the tactics of Ergen purchasing companies and assimilating technology and in some cases reverse engineering IE:Polaroter
Go Go TiVo !!
TG
...he was well spoken and got his real intentions across, unlike the recording industry.
So Tivo has patented the idea of recording television using a) a bunch of video codecs they didn't invent, b) a bunch of commodity hardware they didn't invent, and c) the brilliant invention of rewind, fast-forward and get this... pause.
There are many original and non-obvious aspects to the Tivo design. The ability to record television, and (!!!) play it back at the same time, do not count. Give Tivo this one, within five years they'll be claiming patent infringement against anyone who records TV onto a hard-disk.
Incidentally, I remember back when Tivo obtained this patent. A bunch of Slashdot commenters-- with a "RTF(Patent)" attitude similar to yours-- made no effort to conceal their contempt for those of us who thought the patent might affect similar (but non-identical) implementations. IIRC, they made a big deal over the precise details in the claims, and how you would have to infringe upon all of those things to merit a lawsuit. Looks like things aren't quite so rosy.
Does anybody know if there is any kind history between the two companies?
According to the articles, Echostar has been offering DVR-like capabilities for awhile now; the suit is just based on some of their latest features. And obviously, TiVo has also been in this business for some time. Echostar offers the product with a service, and TiVo offers the product as their primary line of business. In this type of situation, it's only natural that one might approach the other and propose some kind of deal.
Is there any chance that there is a history of offers/solicitations between the two companies, and that TiVo filed the suit because of being rebuffed?
(Disclaimer for the attorneys: This is just wild speculation based on the "sniff test". As in, this suit just seems to be a bit too much from the clear blue sky...)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
Sorry... The Japanese have prior art on that one.
Seriously though, Tivo was out in front on this technology and whether or not we like it, the only way that tech companies can innovate and still survive is to defend their intellectual property. They put a lot of work into their system and it's not fair for someone else to come along and steal their ideas.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm a Tivo stockholder and a Tivo user for the couple of years. I'm biased!
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Please - not another 'Tivo is just a VCR' Luddite. :) Tivo's patents (specifically 6,233,389) uniquely describe a process that they were first to bring to market. For example, the patent I cite describes pretty much the entire Tivo experience. It describes using MPEG2 technology to replace the tape mechanism in a VCR. They were the first to patent this and the first to truly bring it to market. They beat Replay devices to the mainstream market and put a friendly face on what is a slightly tricky technology to describe to non-Tivo experienced folks who don't "get it". My wife was incensed when I bought our first Tivo because she thought it was "just a fancy VCR" - now you'd have to pry it out of her cold dead hands!
Go Video did this with its dual-transport VCR in the 80s.
2. Pause live tv:
This is only new in the video space. In the audio space, these sorts of things have been done for many, many years. It's called a variable digital delay. They're frequently used to allow people to bleep material from live radio shows. There's a lot less control, but the principal is the same. They also did similar tricks using video disc technology back with the instant replays at least a couple of decades ago.
The TASCAM reel-to-reel decks from decades back must also have been infringing on TiVo's intellectual property, as they had a record head and a play head, with the play head behind the record head. You could listen to the signal being recorded after it was committed to tape. Admittedly, it was only a fraction of a second behind, but people would do things like create a reel of tape that was several seconds long between two recorders and use this for very long audio delays. The only thing you couldn't do was adjust the delay.
Repeat after me: there is nothing patent-worthy about taking an existing idea and making trivial changes to the medium used.
3. Record a show after it has already started?
See the instant replay comment above. Same idea precisely.
4. Keep one show while recording around it.
Simple. Buy a VCR that doesn't suck. It's called insert editing. Admittedly, it has to fit in the appropriate gap, but that's just a limitation to the physical medium that is inherently removed by moving to hard disk, not anything interesting or inventive that TiVo has done.
5. Erasing shows from the middle of the tape?
Again, buy a VCR that doesn't suck. Insert editing with flying erase heads.
None of these things you mention are anything short of blatantly obvious. They have all been done for many, many years prior to TiVo. The only thing interesting that TiVo did was to move to hard drive storage. Move along. There is nothing to see here, just a meaningless court battle....
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