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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."
As I understand it, Dish Networks has pushed upgrades to their units, resolving any infringment issues. Deactivating DVRs isn't on the table.
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?
I believe it was GoVideo that had the two tape VCR. With this VCR, you could record one show and watch another previously recorded program. You could also start recording a show from the point you wanted to get up. This would allow you to continue watching from the point that you left off. In essence pausing.
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.