Netflix Suing Blockbuster for Patent Infringement

grouchomarxist writes "Netflix is suing Blockbuster for Patent Infringement. From the article: 'Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company's Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit. The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles. The second patent, issued on Tuesday, "covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue -- of DVDs to be rented," the lawsuit said.'"

Comments

Stupid Blockbuster

[Spackler]

Blockbuster was stupid. If they had done a land grab, and patented simply renting videos, they could have knocked off NetFlix with a suit. And if "Corner Video" in Framingham had done it, they could have knocked off Blockbuster. And if the TV repair shop in Westboro (the first place I rented a video) had patented it, the entire industry could have been stopped. So, if the MPAA had thought of it, one patent could have prevented home theatre. Ok, I got the way it works now. Patents are cool.

And yes, that TV repair shop in Westboro had both VHS and Betamax. Those were the days!