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TiVO Patent Upheld, Dish May Have to Disable DVR
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a ruling by a lower court that Dish Network DVRs infringe upon TiVO's patent on a 'multimedia time warping system'. According to some analysts, this could not only make Dish liable for damages, it could force them to shut down their DVR service, harming their customers. The patent in question has already been reexamined once and the ruling on appeal (PDF) was unanimous."
I like the dish service.. but aside from my PC I have no experience in the DVR world. Seems much ado about nothing to me.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I wonder if this will have any effect on MythTV?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
As I understand it, Dish Networks has pushed upgrades to their units, resolving any infringment issues. Deactivating DVRs isn't on the table.
And there's a patent on DVR tech that Dish Network has that TiVO is in violation of. I don't think TiVO will be stupid enough to push it because if they do, Dish could pull the same stunt against them and screw them out of business. Dish still sells TV service regardless. What does TiVO do without it's box?
...isn't that prior art?
"Multimedia time warping"? What's this, Captain Picard's DVR?
They'll have to shell out for licensing. If they lose the DVR option, they're going to lose half their customers. I'm with Dish now, but the minute the DVR is disabled I'll be calling up to cancel (God help them if they try to hold me to my contract, since they'll clearly be breaking it by not providing the service they promised) and calling up DirecTV to see what they have on special that week...
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The jury awarded TiVo $73 911 964 in damages. No wonder there are patent-trolls roaming about, with this kind of money being tossed around.
After DishNetwork's crippling of their 501/510 DVR receivers by forcing out botched firmwares, I grew tired of their excuses month after month. So I switched to DirecTV.
Better product, better service, better support. Echostar is starting to fade...quickly.
The patent specifically mentions conversion to and manipulation of the incoming signal via an MPEG formatted stream. Does this mean that devices that use another format for manipulating the streams, say Ogg/Vorbis/Theora, would not be infringing?
No, if you look at the patent the device allows you to watch one program while taping another. VCRs taped what they were tuned to; if you wanted to watch something else you had to typically tune one channel with the VCR and one on the TV. There is obviously more to the patent than just that, but this was the immediate difference that I noticed.
Tivo's patent is for analog to digital conversion / time warping.
Dish's patent is for digital to digital (different digital formats) conversion / time warping.
Guess which broadcast standard is going away.... =)
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Correct, unless the other format is MPEG compliant
"What does TiVO do without it's box?"
Stop pissing off GPLers.
While this is all well and good for Tivo, what does it mean for MythTV?
(emphasis added)
Hardly. They're just trying to avoid investor and customer panic. The reality is that the TiVo timewarp patents are so broad that there's really no way Echostar can work around them without removing significant (and frankly necessary) functionality from their DVR.
Do yourself a favor and actually read the patents.
I'm surprised that no one is commenting on the GPLv3 and the effect this has on Tivo using GPLed products.
I can see several situations develop. First, Tivo uses GPLed code (GPLv3) with their time shifting software and is forced to not apply the patent to derived code. Second and probably more likely, they don't use GPLed code (or GPLv3 code) for the recording and time shifting and use the patent to stop hackers from messing around and getting the Tivo functions working with non Tivo firmware or signed kernels.
Or 3, they don't use GPLv3 code all together and nothing has changed. But it is definitely interesting to think about.
...tee vee thing I hear about (muttered as I browse back to youtube)
Why do we have a patent system?
No, seriously -- TiVo got plenty of money for being first to market, and for licensing their actual product (hardware and software) to others.
What does the consumer gain at this point by having competition killed? Would TiVo really not have bothered to invent the DVR without protection from this competition?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Well I know if I was a Dish Network customer, I'd be real super pleased with Tivo if they got my DVR shut down. I'd be fucking screaming to become one of their customers as fast as possible.
not.
expandfairuse.org
Theora is MPEG compliant in the same way The Great Gatsby is a classic Japanese novel, so I guess we're OK.
Seriously, how is this patent not obvious? Replace VCR/DVD media with a HDD, slap in a CPU and RAM, and all that is left is to write the code. Is giving the user the ability to multiplex their base bandwidth that novel? Amazing thing to allow people to control their bandwidth.
Couldn't you just record the actual signal coming in the back of the box before the image and sound processing was done and get around both patents? They maybe creating a read ahead buffer of about 128 megs or so and you could use somewhat of a standard commercial length for a skip a read and rewind. Just keep the viewing in the middle of the buffer and add to either side depending on which direction it is going in.
You could drop the tuner support for the different heads down to just the parts that segregate the signals then feed it all through one of two regular tuners during playback and probably have the ability to record 5 or 10 channels at once for the same costs. Of course I'm not sure how this would be technically different then devices used by ham radio operators with their repeaters. Some have record abilities but I don't know if they can pause/fast forward and so on.
I'm curious to see if I get flamed for this, but I'm going to say that on some philosophical level, Tivo should win this.
I've been very critical of patents in the past, and in general I think they are overused by trolls and big corps to squash competition on obvious ideas. But most people admit that somewhere underneath all that crap is the ideal of a little guy being able to spend a bunch of time and money to invent and bring something to market without having someone else immediately copy them and usurp the benefits of all their hard work. There's a valid, society benefitting reason for patents, it's just that they're almost never used in that way these days any more.
I think Tivo is an example of what patents should protect. My understanding is that Tivo was a pretty clever idea, and they spent a lot of time and money creating something very cool and unique. I never owned one myself, but friends did, and it seemed to me that if anything was patentable it would be Tivo. I was later a bit weirded out when all these competing DVRs appeared. In fact I took it to mean that the patent system was broken in both directions: it encouraged patent trolling over obvious ideas and it failed to protect inventors.
Now I hear that they may be getting patent protection after all, and for the first time since Dyson protected himself against the vacuum manufacturers that refused to license his work, I'm seeing patents do what they were meant to do: encourage actual invention.
If you think Tivo was not worthy of a patent, then I don't know what to tell you. It's not just a VCR, and if it were people would be including VCRs in cable boxes. They came up with something cool that nobody else was doing, and if I understand the market at the time, something nobody else wanted to do. And before they could turn a profit they were slammed by knockoffs from several sides.
Anyways: I just want to call out that while I generally gag at the patent cases I see, this is not one of them. I think Tivo brought something unique to market and they should have a (truly) limited time to exclusively benefit from it.
Cheers.
Dish won't disable DVR, they'll just start charging more for it to get TiVO their cut.
Ouch you really have a grudge against that Muddabir Aziz don't you?
Time-warping? Isn't that like the definition of a DVR? 'Cause I think prior art already exists with ReplayTV....
I'm pretty sure that video capture cards on the PC predated the Tivo. I see that AIW was first introduced on 11/11/96. The Tivo patent is dated 6/30/98. I'm pretty sure that devices that did what the patent claims were down right common by 98. The only thing that Tivo did that was cool was put it in a nice stereo looking case, and had a nice UI.
I know that the AIW pro that is sitting here next to me did everything described by the patent. And it predates the Tivo patent. I don't see how Dish successfully lost this case.
Having just upgraded my Dish to a brand new ViP722 receiver... talk about your bad timing... This kinda sucks.
That being said, bravo Tivo. This is clearly in Tivo's court, as they did create the technology. They should be paid for what they own.
Now, here's hoping that Tivo and Dish reach an agreement without interrupting my service or raising my bill... how likely is that? It's not very likely...
Here's an idea - Dish should give Tivo free press: "Dish PVR, based on Tivo Technology!" and drop the "It's Better than Tivo!*" Advertisement they currently have running. Maybe that will lessen those fees owed.
--Pathway
(* As said by some guy on CNet)
This means that while they can nail Dish network for patent violation, they themselves have committed a copyright violation and opened themselves up to lawsuits from thousands of developers.
because it's nice to see big corporations with their patents eating one another... one gigantic corporate machine vs another using absolutely stupid patent justifications for suing another. It's like watching Rush Limbaugh chew into mccain while the main stream media adores and sings his praises.. Let these fuckers weaken themselves. Frankly, I hope both parties in this case suffer catastrophe, total meltdown of their bottom line. I don't give a flying fuck if tivo lives or dies, but if they're alive let them suck the blood from another corporate entity while they have the chance.
But of course if the court thinks it's new then it's new? Right?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I think Tivo is an example of what patents should protect. My understanding is that Tivo was a pretty clever idea, and they spent a lot of time and money creating something very cool and unique.
Many people had this idea before TiVo; it's a pretty obvious idea for people working with digital video, and there were many of those around when TiVo was founded.
I think Tivo brought something unique to market and they should have a (truly) limited time to exclusively benefit from it.
Issues of creativity aside, the purpose of patents is to promote progress. How did this patent promote progress? TiVo became big and successful before their patent had any effect. And DVRs would have been done anyway, with or without TiVo, as soon as the hardware price was about right.
This patent should have struck down because (1) it's just a digital implementation of an existing, analog process, and (2) the technique is obvious to someone of ordinary skill working on digital video.
Yeah ! Stick it to the corporations and their greed-fueled idiocy trying to control what you can and can't do !
Oops, spoke too soon.
DVD-RAM introduced 1996 had 'time shifted playback while recording' capability.
When I were a kid, in the early 70's, I ent oa tv-exhibiton, when they made the first colour TV in Denmark.
I saw a machine for Instant TV replay, using a 15" magnetic platter drive, i.e. a hard disk.
that is clearly prior art to me.
That it is now available to customers is only a matter of price development, not a patentable issue.
I take it you've never seen Akira Kurosawa's Gatsby Gaijin?
If you actually read the patent you'll see the following:
1. A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of: accepting television (TV) broadcast signals, wherein said TV signals are based on a multitude of standards, including, but not limited to, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) broadcast, PAL broadcast, satellite transmission, DSS, DBS, or ATSC; tuning said TV signals to a specific program; providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation; providing a Media Switch, wherein said Media Switch parses said MPEG stream, said MPEG stream is separated into its video and audio components; storing said video and audio components on a storage device; providing at least one Output Section, wherein said Output Section extracts said video and audio components from said storage device; wherein said Output Section assembles said video and audio components into an MPEG stream; wherein said Output Section sends said MPEG stream to a decoder; wherein said decoder converts said MPEG stream into TV output signals; wherein said decoder delivers said TV output signals to a TV receiver; and accepting control commands from a user, wherein said control commands are sent through the system and affect the flow of said MPEG stream.
What this means in laymans terms is that the patent is for the process of taking a video, converting it to a MPEG stream and then separating the audio and video portions which are then stored separately. To play back the video, the video and audio files are combined back into a MPEG stream and then decoded. In addition commands can be used to manipulate playback of the the MPEG stream. The above process allowed MPEG encoding/decoding to occur using very low end hardware. Those who say that TiVo can sue the manufacturers of every hardware and software DVR on the market, either do not understand the above patent or do not understand how other DVRs work. The patent only affects DVRs that store the audio and video separately. Dish was a good target because they basically reverse engineered a prototype that TiVo showed them back in the days to convince them to license the TiVo patent. DirectTV chose to license the technology, which is why they weren't sued.
This is like if Microsoft patented the OS concept and said no one else could make an operating system because they own the concept's patent.
Very informative, but also very off topic. You should have a laywer explain to you what that section actually means. It has no bearing on this issue. The code TiVo has a patent on is not GPL code, first of all. Second, the section you quote refers to entities that get slapped with restrictions due to a patent they do not own and the effect thereof on their ability to distribute.
Actually if you read the patent it also includes satellite (digital signals).. maybe I can final have a tivo in my dish network set top rather than the horrible one that comes with it.
Substantiate your claim with specific patents violated, and how, or retract your claim.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Tivo has bought up an ancient overly broad patent that shouldn't ever have been granted in the first place, a patent that would have prevented them from getting started if the owner had noticed them and decided to enforce it against them, and are using it to cut down on competition.
If Dish had bought that patent instead, and Tivo was on the losing side, nobody would be defending Dish. And it could have happened that way: that's the way patent trolls work, after all. A stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and if a broken system NEVER happened to be abused by someone who would have a valid case if the system actually worked as intended that would be surprising... but regardless of Tivo's innovation, they're not being rewarded by the patent system for their own patent that they created as a result of their innovation, they're being rewarded because they happened to buy into a trollable patent before someone else did.
And the purpose of the patent system isn't to reward "first to troll".
So stop whining and complaining and go invent, go create, go design, go and WORK because you to deserve the fruits of your labor.
No thanks. I'll work because I love doing it and because I want to make the world a better place. The people who invent deserve the fruits of their labor, the people who create great works of art deserver the fruits of their labor, the people who create great software deserve the fruits of their labor. Perhaps so, but if that's your goal, we know that the current patent and copyright laws will not accomplish it. The current system is just a crap shoot, albeit heavily weighted towards those who (a) have a lot of money, (b) want to make a lot of money, and (c) are willing to spend a considerable amount of time gaming the system rather than being creative."Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
We have been raised to believe ideas seem obvious only in hindsight. That is not the case.
The reason nobody did this before is that the technologies were not mature, the hard disks were too small (or too expensive), etc, etc. Yet this patent is not about anything that enabled this.
This patent monopolizes the problem, not the solution. It describes a product, not its implementation.
Superficially it is about an improved way of providing time shifting, which allows simultaneous recording and playback at a reasonable price. However, everybody at the time knew that harddisks offered this kind of advantages. The patent says use MPEG (to reduce harddisk capacity need), and everybody knew that also, but it was very hard to do the compression sufficiently fast with cheap processors and cheap memory. However, TiVo has not invented faster CPUs, better compression schemes or anything enabling.
I guess that when TiVo started, to get the whole thing working with the parts available at the time and at a reasonable price _was_ a challenge, and probably required some investments. However, this patent discloses nothing but a sketch, a plan that somebody skilled in the art would have written down in ten minutes. The tricky part is not disclosed. However, a couple of years later, with even faster processors etc available off the shelf, then also the implementation of the sketch becomes increasingly something that anyone skilled in the art can do without further tips and without much research. This is ironical: The product plan as described in then patent was obvious at the time, what was not obvious was not disclosed in the patent. Yet the continued evolution has made also that obvious so that it appears like the patent did disclose enough. However, here is where the hindsight is.
We might perhaps want a new kind of protection (other than patents) for small firms that do heavy research at the point in time when an inherently obvious principle becomes possible because of developments in other fields (ram capacities, CPU frequencies, etc) but then that should be formulated and the conditions, limits to applicability, etc. should be worked out. The patent system had a different (but related) purpose, but has fallen into such abuse that it is mostly by accident that it now protects a company that once did some hard work, ironically, through a patent the company acquired from somebody else long after they did their work.
There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
Dancing green girls, here I come!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'm going to stop taking an interest in tech for at least another year or so.
At Christmas time, I had to replace my TV and DVD player. Since HD DVD units were so cheap, I bought one. Less than a week later Warner Brothers announced they were dropping support (by May, but they seem kinda firm about that; then again, they were firm about staying neutral two weeks prior to that...not that that means anything.)
About the time I took an interest in DVD-A discs and started buying (hey, they can play in DVD players, it's a no-brainer, right?), all the local retailers pulled DVD-A off the shelves and went SACD exclusive. A few months after that, of course, they went back to being CD-exclusive.
A while back there was interest in doing county-wide wireless (I live somewhere where Internet service is shoddy.) About the time I took notice, some cable company asshats started a lawsuit. No high-speed internet for me!
(Ditto for Dish's deal with SkyBlue. For whatever reason they only offer it in certain ZIP codes. Whisky, tango, foxtrot, over? It's SATELLITE SERVICE!)
I just got a flyer yesterday for Dish and was seriously considering calling, due to their HD DVR pricing scheme sounding great. Um...wait, looks like a patent troll got their DVR service shut down. And does anyone remember how DirecTV was going to be cheaper than cable? Yeah...right.
So, the TiVo patent runs out in 6 or 7 years, huh? Damn...you mean I have to wait until the middle of the next decade to get in on DVR goodness? No, no, no; I won't be getting a TiVo. Anyone who uses GPLed software yet patent trolls is worse than pond scum.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Possibly, but their devices (at the time of the patent) hooked up to the receiver at the analog output stage, to the be re-converted back to digital.
They did not cover integration to record within the digital stream.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Is that an anatomical term, or something?
You seem to be sharing the common misconception that the US Analog cutoff in 2009 (and the resulting airmeans that there will be no analog TV available period. The reality is that only over-the-air analog transmission ceases in 2009; however, analog television will continue to be available over cable well in to the forseeable future, so TiVo need not worry about the value of their patent diminishing any time soon.
/. readers who use cable), and their expectation that demand for additional analog spectrum on cable will only increase as a result of over-the-air analog's scheduled demise, it is quite surprising to see people so eagerly talking about the death of analog.
When the major MSOs publicly state at SCTE's ET 2008 conference that digital cable has only a 30 percent penetration in their customer base (notwithstanding the obviously higher digital cable adoption percentage of
The patent doesn't cover that 'multimedia time warping system' is done, it merely covers how it is done with TiVO's technology. If Dish wants to use type different hardware - like something analog in nature - then it gets around TiVO's patent. Realize I'm playing devil's advocate here. The idea you can blanket cover 'multimedia time warping system' using said technology is asinine.
MythTV was started in 2002, so it doesn't predate the 1998 patent, and can't serve as prior art.
On the other hand :
- Linux VDR predates MythTV. Maybe that project is as old as the patent claim and could constitute prior art (even if it was started on a different continent).
- I can swear that a lot of the TV-video-acquisition card manufacturer have always heavily emphasized recording and time shifting capabilities even on their earliest models as far as in the 90s when the technology started to appear. (Even if in the beginning, that technology basically looked like crap because there wasn't enough bandwidth to capture video at native framerate or resolution). I have memories of parents of friends of mine experimenting with such things mid-90s. Ok, there might be difference in the storage format (real-time MPEG has been out of question. Real-time MJPEG at best when hardware or some simplier forms of compression when software), and the whole stack was running on full computers instead of embed computers, but I think those difference are minor and obvious.
- Hauppauge, arguably one of the important player in the TV capture cards is in business since the early 90s. They probably can attest prior art in the field of (computer-based) DVR.
- The whole patents looks like "Like a VCR, but with a computer" with the additional novelty (compared to VCR, not compared to what technology was spreading back then) of exploiting the random access capabilities of computer storages compared to linear properties of VCR tape. I don't know why this patent isn't considered obvious.
MythTV is safe from litigation : TiVO's patent basically describes a DVR. MythTV on the other hand is much more complex. According to its author, it's a "mythical convergence box" (hence the name) designed to be able to surf web, exchange emails, play games and also watch and record TV.
It's not a "DVR similar to TiVO" it's a "complete multimedi entertainment center which happens to have recording capabilities among other".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Get it, the fact that you are going back in time makes it *prior* art? Get a clue and mod "funny."
To address your point: I think very few people believe that inventors (and artists) shouldn't be rewarded for their contributions. But many would agree that the current mechanisms in place for ensuring distribution of those rewards are not only faulty, but maliciously constructed in the first place, and frequently abused.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
If so, will MythTV work when XP becomes unsupported?
RR
Time Warping?
... something Spock came up with at the last moment? (Not to mention the episode with that odd cat, the movie III, TNG's last episode all over the place...)
...
Wasn't that in that episode of the original Star Trek
And, of course, in black holes since, what, 14 billion years ago
*grin*
Dave Small