Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Wins Hyperlink TV Pause Battle
TripMaster Monkey writes "The Register is running an interesting story on a patent recently granted to Microsoft. This patent, which covers 'pausing television programming in response to selection of hypertext link', among other things, has been in contention for over twelve years, and the language used in the patent reveals its age ('The Internet has recently exploded in popularity,' and, 'a computer user with a modem can get on-line.'). Despite its age, however, this patent, which covers 35 claims in all, will be of major importance in the impending IPTV battle in the States."
The granting [of] patents 'inflames cupidity', excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits...The principle of the law from which such consequences flow cannot be just."
The Economist, 1851. As true then as it is today.
Simon
Even with the fact that it is an old patent, you can see this becoming a major issue with all the interactive TV services now. Say an ad (oh whoopee!) pops up, and you decide to click the link in the ad (HA!) ... obviously you want your show paused, but now no one but MS can do that.
Quite unfortunate, really. Such basic ideas making it through...
I'll just set up a network in India, Venezuela, Iran, etc. where you press a button on a remote control, which speed dials a number to an operator (standing by, of course) who clicks on a hyperlink on their screen which pauses, changes channels, adjusts volume, etc. for you on your PVR/TV/Media Center/WhatHaveYou!
And I'll base the headquarters in Cuba where they couldn't give a rat's patoot about IP laws.
Problem solved.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...but how did it seem twelve years ago when the patent was filed? Nobody knew what the Internet was capable of, and it may well have been a unique insight. Hell if the patent office had just been granted twelve years ago, it would expire about 5 years from now. With IPTV probably still a few years out, it wouldn't make much difference to how things unfold.
As an anti-patent, anti-copyright anarchocapitalist, I wonder if we should just support every patent that is applied for and see if the entire system can come crashing down. Eventually it will cost companies more to enforce their patents than they're receiving from the "protection" they get out of them, right?
I can not, for the life of me, see how patents give people reason to research and develop new ideas. If someone is going to capitalize on your idea, they'll modify the process and create a patent of their own. Look at every cell phone that is released with 5 new patents, and the "bootlegs" of those phones that are released just 6-12 months later. What the heck is the point of patenting something that isn't of value even a year down the line?
The typical slashdot response to my anti-patent opinion is that prescription drugs wouldn't be researched, but the majority of the people actually researching these drugs aren't the ones who gain billions in profits from the discovery. You may not see megacorps working on solutions, but the biggest medical developments in human history came originally from a few researchers, not megalabs that spend billions and release drugs that addict and kill their users.
Come on, people, don't you see that there is no solution to this legal racketeering other than dismantling the entire system? Competitition is good for consumers, anti-competitive government force is terrible. In the end, we all pay with our pocketbooks (to enforce these legal monopolies) and with our lives (when imperfect drugs/safety devices/whatever can not be perfected by competition). Let's start looking at what made this country great -- open competition.
Microsoft isn't the only patent abuser. Maybe its time for someone to research (and blog?) about every patent abusing lawsuit that hits the courts, and see how consumer choice is severely hampered by the ridiculous protection of ideas.
What is a "hypertext link"? My definition of "hypertext" is a series of documents linked together by related words that can be navigated by clicking on highlighted words. As soon as a tag starts doing things like controlling a television the document stops being "hypertext". In purely academic terms, what Microsoft has patented as I understand it is actually impossible.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
You can easily work around this patent by slowing down the TV
stream by factor of 1000,0000,000 instead of just pausing it.
Who needs pause anyway?
During the last 12 years we all have improved our abilities
to multitask while surfing online. This is proven on a daily basis
by countless geeks masturbating *while* klicking hyperlinks (and
sometimes even while @ work). This is progress!
--- Eat my sig.
Like the fact that IIRC there were TV tuner cards back in the DOS/Apple II days, and applications that could write text onto the graphic screen at the same time. I personally wrote an app in Clipper that allowed a user to click on an image from a TV screen capture, and move to different places in the application based on "member data", and that was a not too difficult application by a solo programming newbie at the time. Authoring software anyone? Dragon's lair or Space Ace video games? do they apply?.
What think ye all?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I didn't look/read the patent but alot of this crap is getting passed that's really obvious. What's happening is that there's now a race to "think" about what might be handy to do and then patent that even though anybody else knowledgeable in the field, would come to the same conclusion if put the the task. What really sucks is that companies like Microsoft, with tons of cash, can afford to throw lawyers at anybody they want to in order to shut them down or steal/buy their technology.
Anyways, since Tivo already has the ability to pause and you can go to another information/data page/display while the video is still feeding the DVR buffer, there shouldn't be anything to this. A URL is no different than an onscreen or offscreen button IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
It annoys me greatly how many people blindly post on here based on a news article with only half the information, or worse yet, on a brief synopsis of an already bad article, when it comes to patent related issues.
Half the posts are instantly finding ways to bash the PTO and a lot of those are people pulling quotes from their little text file they keep hand to copy and paste their "smart" words. The problem there is no real discussion. No real interest in talking about if the patent is valid, what issues may or may not arise from the patent, or how limited the patent may be.
There are far better places to argue about the patent system and how broken (or unbroken it may be), just don't codemn a single patent you have never read as being obvious or simple. If you really think a case went this long, through this many continuing applications without being effectively and properly researched for prior art, then closed-minded is where you stay.
It is important that people realize the patent system needs reform, but there is no motivation for the government to do so at this time. It is not an issue that many people in the government fully understand and there are two large lobbyist groups on opposite sides of a great many of the reforms that were proposed in the last Patent Reform Act.
I will admit the patent system could use a few tweaks to correct some issues, but the problems are not these end of the world, destruction of all innovation that people are continually making them out to be. I would like to hope that some of you have taken a view that is not alarmist and actually researched the current issues with the patent system and not just listened to the words from your "friends" here at slashdot. Trust me, some of these patents people are crying foul on are more patentable then they realize.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Why is it that when Microsoft wins a patent-related lawsuit, the Slashdot story's primary icon is the "patent pending on silverware" icon, and yet, when Microsoft loses a patent-related lawsuit, the Slashdot story's primary icon is the "justice" icon (example)?
This kind of journalistic prejudice implies that when Microsoft wins a patent lawsuit, patents are evil, but when Microsoft loses a patent lawsuit, justice is being served. The truth of the matter is that the patent system is being abused and needs to be changed regardless of whether Microsoft is winning or losing lawsuits.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Hmm, Dada has been entirely consistent in his description of coercive and non-coercive monoplies. They are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. (errm, wait, I forgot where I was.)
As Dada has stated and restated - coercive monopolies require the use of force to perpetuate. Usually this means government force - but could mean illegal use of force by the entity. Note that I said Illegal use of force. There are legal barriers to entry eg the Bell System you mentioned. Bell couldn't have behaved as they did with out the fed's gun supporting them.
A non-coercive monopoly could be based on any of several factors for it's existence. Generally - a better product, better service, better business strategy. No legal barriers to entry into the market. They exist because they do it better than everyone else. What remedy would you propose? That they publicise their processes for anyone to use? Why should they? If you don't like it, go do it better. Yes they exist and they should be left alone.
FDR
Garet Garrett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garet_Garrett was one of the most eloquent of his critics. He wrote extensively of what was done, why it was done, how it was done and the ramifications to the Republic - consolidated in 1951 into The Peoples Pottage
Excerpts from part of it, The Revolution Was http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/docs/The_Revolution_W as.html:
"one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state." -Aristotle
Julius C. Smith, of the American Bar Association, saying: "Is there any labor leader, any businessman, any lawyer or any other citizen of America so blind that he cannot see that this country is drifting at an accelerated pace into administrative absolutism similar to that which prevailed in the governments of antiquity, the governments of the Middle Ages, and in the great totalitarian governments of today? Make no mistake about it. Even as Mussolini and Hitler rose to absolute power under the forms of law... so may administrative absolutism be fastened upon this country within the Constitution and within the forms of law."