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TiVo Relaunching As a Patent Troll?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-thought-we-could-be-friends dept.

An anonymous reader writes "TiVo's quarterly call was a bit more dramatic than usual. While they continue to lose customers and innovate 'at a very unhurried pace,' TiVo seeks a repeat DISH Network performance in going after AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) for infringement. Basically, TiVo's current business model appears to be ad sales and patent trolling."

6 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. How is this a Patent Troll? by hattig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not like TiVo is a company set up to collect patents and then chase them down. They've had products on the market for years, would by many be said to have created the home digital recorder (and thus have attained many patents), still have products on the market, and other providers have created products that are now losing TiVo business.

    So if the patent is valid (I haven't read it) then surely TiVo have as much right to go after infringers as any other company that has its patents on its products infringed?

    1. Re:How is this a Patent Troll? by jittles · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Worst of all for TiVO is that the service providers are intentionally trying to block them out of the market so they can provide their own DVR's based on TiVO's work. It's patents fighting against service monopolies.

  2. Trlling? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not trolling if your patent truly covers an innovation, and your competitors copy it. In this case it's called "protecting your rights".

  3. Not all that trollish! by jeffshoaf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think TIVO is using the patent system exactly as it was intended. They invented something unique and successfully marketed it, but then various cable and satellite companies decided to not (or to stop) paying the licensing fees and create similar devices. Let's face it, the cable companies aren't all that inovative on their own and they probably wouldn't have come up with the idea for a DVR w/o seeing TIVOs.

    --
    Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
  4. Well... by aengblom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably a better business model than

    1. Spend lots of money to invent the mousetrap
    2. Spend more money to make it better
    3. Allow cable/satellite to build 80% of your ideas into their own equipment and cut you out of any revenues
    4. Profit

    --


    So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
  5. Re:It's Netscape VS MS Again.. by VeryVito · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every time I've set up new cable service, I try the local carrier's DVR flavor... and so far, I have always gone back to TiVo. TiVo actually DOES have a nice product with several innovative features. Protecting one's patent does NOT make one a troll: it makes one a patent holder. The original poster seems to think all patents should be abolished (which would kinda suck for encouraging some innovations).