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TiVo Wins Permanent Injunction Against EchoStar
ZenFodderBoy writes "It's official! Judge Folsom entered his ruling today granting TiVo nearly $90 million in damages, plus granting a permanent injunction calling for the disabling of nearly all of EchoStar's DVRs within the next 30 days. EchoStar's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal was denied. Additionally, the judge reserves the right to grant additional damages in the future, so treble damages may still be coming. Excellent news for TiVo!"
"Excellent news for TiVo!" Bad news for consumers.
EchoStar must disable DVRs, judge rules
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
I'm more concerned about what this means for projects like MythTV...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
IMHO, Echostar got what they deserved. It's a shame their customers may have to suffer for it, but that's the price of protecting the inventors.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Disclaimer: I work for Echostar.
I'm just a Technical Support Representative, but I've been reading about this case long before I worked there.
The initial ruling, I applauded. Yes, Echostar screwed up with Tivo. Yes, I think they should have to pay for that mistake, in monetary terms. Tivo earned at least that much.
However - DVR functionality at this point is just about commonplace - Dish/Echostar's DVRs perform the same functions that Tivo, and 50 other competing products do, and to tell Echostar that it can no longer compete in this now-established market is tantamount to handing the company over to a Firing Squad.
Nevermind the fact that there are now millions of Dish Network customers that are using DVR recievers, that will find out about this case, find that they've lost the functionality that they have been paying for every month - and place the blame squarely on - guess who? - Tivo.
Now, I like Tivo - and I hope they succeed, and again, I'm more than happy to see them monetarily compensated for the situation. But this is not punishing Echostar/Dish - this is only punishing the consumers who have bought those devices and who use them every day, and continue to do so.
On a personal note - this lawsuit will make my life a living hell, becuase those millions of customers will be calling me to explain why they can no longer use the functionality that they signed up for. The first time I recieve a phonecall asking why our DVR service has disappeared and why they cannot use the hard drive on the device they paid for, is the day that I turn in my resignation.
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
Of course this would be a setback for the projects but it wouldn't be enough to kill them.
Your UID is very high, so I'll excuse that remark.
That is how it works in theory. In practice:
1) The patentee gets a patent on something he didn't actually invent, but was first to file.
2) Patents are granted on mundane, obvious inventions. (Queue the "obvious invention on a computer/Internet" patents) These are granted because patent examiners don't have much technical expertise in the field and have limited time to check for prior art.
3) If you do actually invent something non-obvious, and the big guys infringe on your patent, you'll bankrupt yourself via legal fees trying to get them to pay.
Dare I say yes?
From what I understand the patent infrigement is on tivos "Time warping system", which I if I understand it correctly is "pause and rewind live TV" as well as "record one show while watching another".
/dev/video0 >/tmp/in0.mpg /tmp/in0.mpg
/dev/video0 >/tmp/in0.mpg /dev/video1 >/tmp/in1.mpg /tmp/in1.mpg
Basically the number one claim seems to be on seeking in an open file if the file is a multimedia stream. In Linux language:
cat
mplayer
Those two lines would instantly infringe on tivos patent.
The next claim is even fruitier.
cat
cat
mplayer
I have a hard time beliving tivo actully did this first, and even if they did where is the invention. When I first got a TV card a couple of years ago this is what I did because it was the easiest way to get the media to play. Needless to say, but I didn't feel like I invented something. Maybe I missed something about tivos patent, I'm not a lawyer.
DirecTV is actually a TiVo licensee. Up until recently, all DirecTV DVRs actually ran TiVo software. Three months ago, TiVo signed a deal with DirecTV to extend the licensing arrangement until 2009. TiVo will continue to service the ~2 million DirecTV DVRs based on TiVo software, and both parties specifically agreed not to sue each other over patents as happened with Dish Network/Echostar.
http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_85.html
Why is it that the customer has to suffer? A while ago, when Microsoft lost a patent dispute, they urged customers to apply a Service Pack for Office, and stop using the version that got shipped on purchase!
What fault is it of the customer, if the vendor from who he purchsaed some product / service is found guilty of patent abuse? If Echostar has abused TiVo's patents and sold a few millions of their products... I think a more equitable judgement ought to be along the lines... like, Echostar to pay TiVo the requisite license money so that existing customers may continue to use their products and services uninterrupted.
A patent should not imply that one single company has exclusive rights to implement, sell and support products based out of the said patent. The true purpose of patents is in fact, to spur innovation... not to build monopolies. Echostar might be directed NOT TO sell future products in violation of patents... it appears UNJUST that existing customers suffer a loss of functionality because of this. What if a patent violation happened in a medicinal drug? Patients must vomit already ingested medicines and die?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The patents were neither obvious or easy at the time of the patent application. Hardware was so slow back then that video encoding and playback from hard drives were difficult. Today, everything is 10 times faster, so it is easy to think of it as trivial. But you need to think of it in terms of what was available in 1997.
That brings up somewhat obvious questions about the applicability and utility of our patent system. TiVO patented something in 1997 that was novel and non-obvious. However, it would have been both obvious and easy 5 years later. So, they get 17 years of monopoly for being ahead of their time.
I dig it though, I have friends who work there, and they could use the money...
All Echostar users should go to the setup menu now and "disable automatic updates". It's a pity that updates, which used to mean improvements, can now mean less functionality. Go to your box(es) now, and disable all update check boxes !
The ruling didn't say that Echostar had to kill all of their DVR's. The ruling said that Echostar had 30 days to negotiate a licensing arrangement with TiVo. TiVo has some great leverage in the negotiations, but that's because Echostar refused to negotiate previously, preferring to play "hard ball" in court, and lost.
This is, by the way, how basic patents work. There's no "it's popular, so you don't have to pay to license the patent" rule. For example, Motorolla has a patent on putting a heat sink on a transistor, and every other electronics company pays them for it. There's an engineer that has the patent on on-screen programmable VCR's, and he gets paid for every single VCR manufactured. The way the world works, that engineer doesn't have a monopoly on on-screen programmable VCR's, but every VCR manufacturer has to negotiate a license before they can (legally) ship their product.
This won't affect Echostar customers, or technical support representatives, unless Echostar decides that they'd rather screw their customers than cut a deal with TiVo. At that point, resigning is a reasonable course of action.
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