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Microsoft Sues TiVo To Help AT&T
Julie188 writes "Microsoft is suing TiVo, claiming patent infringement. Microsoft is doing this because TiVo has sued AT&T — and AT&T happens to be Microsoft's largest customer of Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV technology. Microsoft says that TiVo has copied Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV technology in its DVRs. If Microsoft wins, it would effectively block TiVo from selling DVRs without a licensing deal with Microsoft."
You launch yours, I'll launch mine, and the usual trolls will launch their own just because they can. With any luck, they'll cause enough chaos to bring the issue to light and bring us closer to IP reform.
Wow it looks like Microsoft wants another Monopoly, I'm shocked!
You gotta love how companies have found exactly what to do with patent infringements - put them in a bag and keep them stored away well under room temperature until the right moment when these can be enjoyed - such as, at a time when they can be used to scare or threaten competitors or help achieve a goal. Patent infringement is not patent infringement until such time when it can be exploited to the limit.
Humans are so damn smart it is scary.
Is this an example of "the enemy of my friend is my enemy" or the beginning of "mutual assured destruction"?
Corporate America is one big clusterfuck
Suing TiVo for delivering content ?
Next is Neanderthal suing them for using fire or a wheel ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
The ATT/Microsoft/Motorola DVR sucks giant donkey dicks. You can bet that ATT only wished they could use Tivo technology. We had Uverse installed and ended up using our Tivos downstream of the ATT DVRs, they sucked that bad. The smart thing would have been for ATT to license the Tivo design instead of the locked-down bogus Microsoft design.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
So, what happens if there is a set of law suits with a circular dependency and ALL plaintiffs win? Does that mean we lose?
When one big software company sues another, the only possible outcomes are that either they all back down or they end in Mutually Assured Destruction. Most of the companies have patent portfolios as a deterrent only. I don't know what TiVo thinks they can accomplish with their North Korea strategy.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Live by the patent, die by the patent...
The same nonsense that allowed Tivo to run amok is now being turned back against it.
None of these shenanigans should be tolerated by anyone at all.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Maybe no one is banning no one but after 64.27.160.198 I can't access Slashdot either, can anyone pls check out? Last two hops are death.
Embrace Communism and eliminate capitalism. This is a prime example of capitalism at work. Communism does not allow for imaginary property to hold back progress.
This is exactly why our computer products cost so much. Someone at the USPTO needs to revise operating procedure because patents are not only being used to protect technology but inhibit it or make it expensive.
I personally have nothing against Microsoft. If its the right tool for the right job, no issues. My gripe is that Microsoft used to be a innovator. Now it seems all they want to do is patent ideas or buy up old patents then sue the person for infringement. I personally believe this is why the computer science field is failing. We are no longer taught how to be innovative but rather double click on a icon.
WOW! Germans really love nasty porn, 90% of my connections pass trough them. Still waiting /. you biatches!
So, now we know how IP War I(tm) opens on Front #1 (Patents).
There will at sometime be a situation vital to two implacably opposed large opponents, who draw other companies in to the fray for their own interests. They will use Patents to attack. Kind of like all the treaties before WW I drew into two groups, except this will probably be a star configuration, (with the additional bonus of some companies possibly suing others on *both* sides).
I wonder how Front #2 (Copyright) and Front #3 (Trademark) will fare.
My bet is Trademark will be like Switzerland. Everybody wants to own their own rep/name.
I have no idea how a copyright war would start. Perhaps cross licensing schemes? Ah, perhaps not corp vs. corp? Maybe this war will be from human beings to corporations, defining just what is reasonable. that would be truly a guerrilla war. right now file sharing and the like is at most, civil disobedience.
Well, anyway, let's get some popcorn!
So let me get this right... TiVo is suing AT&T (and has sued Dish and Echostar previously) claiming that they infringe on the "time-warping" feature of DVRs? The "pause live tv" feature? How exactly is this novel and unique once you get the video into the computer that runs the DVR?
I have a patented the act of recognizing letters organized into words. I hereby order you all to cease and desist from any further reading without first obtaining a license. If you desire to read said license, that will require an additional license.
I'm not so sure its that funny.
Isn't tivo just serving as a surrogate for Linux here? After all, I believe Linux is at Tivo's core.
Does this not continue the chain started when Microsoft sued TomTom? Is it not a pattern of harassment of companies making money with a Linux core?
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Wouldn't this sort of 'buddy system' be illegal, much like price fixing?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Tivo a surrogate for Linux? Bullshit. Tivo's abuse of GPL loopholes is what prompted the changes to GPLv3.
Well, so says Stallman, but Torvalds sees nothing wrong with that.
Besides, this is a nuance probably lost on Microsoft.
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It looks to me like this is more threatening to MythTV and the like than to Linux itself. But then I didn't RTFA, so I wouldn't know.
$ make available
Nevermind
$ make available
My U-verse DVR is so much more usable than a Tivo because of all it's stupendous theft-worthy features.
Typical foaming at the mouth anti-MS zealots, fail to read TFA and spreading FUD in knee jerk reactions.
It's Tivo that's the enemy of the new digital era.
It's Tivo that's suing willy nilly.
The latest legal salvo comes a few months after TiVo launched its own strike against AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), alleging that their video services illegally use its TV "time-warping" technology in their digital video recorders. AT&T's U-Verse TV service runs on Microsoft's Internet video technology.
TiVo hasn't been shy about using the courtroom to protect its intellectual property. The company also has a long-running dispute with Dish Networks Corp. ( DISH) and sister company Echostar Corp. (SATS) over the same DVR technology. The company has agreements with most of the cable companies and DirecTV Group Inc. ( DTV).
I'm a former AT&T U-Verse customer, and a former TiVo customer. I switched to U-Verse from T/W because TimeWarner refused to provide adequate support for the CableCards they supplied in my TiVo - channels would randomly go missing causing difficulty or programs to record an hour of black. Had TiVo for years and loved it. Always explained it to people that I'm a tech/programmer who spends all day fighting with computers. I loved that I could come home and not fight with my TV (until the cablecards, that is).
The U-Verse DVR *sucked*. If you pressed the "skip ahead" key at just the wrong interval, it would inexplicably jump to the end of the program with the "do you want to delete this?" prompt. To which I would invariably yell at the DVR "no you dumbass, I just wanted to skip ahead two minutes". The software, frankly was awful in a multitude of ways. I switched to DirecTV, and the DVR software is better, but still stinks compared to TiVo.
For me as big of a fan as I am of Linux, etc it wasn't about the OS. It was about the user experience. The U-Verse DVR did stupid, unexplainable shit often enough that I cancelled it after a little less than a year.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
I'm not so sure its that funny.
Isn't tivo just serving as a surrogate for Linux here? After all, I believe Linux is at Tivo's core.
Does this not continue the chain started when Microsoft sued TomTom? Is it not a pattern of harassment of companies making money with a Linux core?
In a word, yes. Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame) just gave a talk about this not two hours ago at linux.conf.au in Wellington, NZ. He stated that this would likely be Microsoft's modus operandi against Linux and FOSS in the near future.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Reputation should not matter and each case should go to the courts on its own merits. However Microsoft is an old whore with a wicked, dirty, reputation. Judges and juries have got to go into a Microsoft trial with a bit of an urge to tie a hangman's knot and I don't blame them. Considering the several billions in losses that Microsoft has already received in various trials perhaps they should be shy of the court house and not think about dragging people to trial.
WTF. I thought PJ was losing it these days by being a anti-MS zealot, but that incoherent rant takes the cake. I didn't really know what she was insinuating by going round and round till the end of the article. As if any company would just spending millions defending another company if it's own interests weren't at stake.
In short, the PR version is that Microsoft is defending AT&T as a Good Samaritan.The reality as I read this is the Microsoft is defending itself, because if AT&T loses, Microsoft faces having to pay yet another pile of bucks for having infringed someone's patent, just like what just happened to it in the i4i v. Microsoft patent case Microsoft lost and is appealing. That is what is at stake in this picture
But the Microsoft statements themselves that PJ quotes say the same damn thing.
D. Microsoft Has a Direct and Substantial Protectible Interest in Defending Its Customer.
Since the filing of the Complaint, AT&T Inc. has contacted Microsoft and demanded that Microsoft indemnify AT&T Inc. against Plaintiff's claims in this case. [Quan Decl. Paragraph 2] AT&T subsidiaries distribute Microsoft's Mediaroom software to run on set-top boxes for U-verse. Microsoft cannot decline to intervene and defend against Plaintiffs' infringement claims aimed at such software without risking damage to Microsoft's relationship with AT&T, Inc. and its subsidiaries. In addition, Microsoft has other television and internet service provider customers. To the extent that Plaintiffs' infringement theories are directed at functionality provided by Mediaroom software, the claims in this case cast a potential cloud of uncertainty over Microsoft's relationships with other actual and potential customers.
Microsoft's software and technology are implicated by Plaintiff's infringement allegations.
Groklaw(along with BoycottNovell.com) has become a anti MS witchhunt. They're no longer objective in any sense of the word. Too bad, I loved their SCO coverage.
Tivo is the kind of Linux user that Linux doesn't need. They use digital signing to deny users the right to run the modifications. They are precisely why Stallman had to come up with GPL v3 to prevent this kind of abuse of GPL v2.
how is anyone trying to spin this as a MS attack? Tivo is not a good comunity player, they are an agressive company that doesn't like to share anything and sues every man and his dog for patents they should never have been granted in the first place. Tivo represents everything we should hate and even MS are the lessor of 2 evils here.
It's not like there are any other OSs that they could have used.
They used Linux because it was easy. Changing the GPL is just going to make companies like Tivo stop using FOSS, they'll just move to a project that has licensing that fits their needs better.
this has nothing to do with linux
Tivo is a Sue happy obnoxious company that agressively sues its competitors through patents that should never have been granted to it. It is nice to see someone pound them in their face for a change. Tivo is attacking Microsofts biggest platform partner, Tivo deserves to be slapped around.
If you had a patent, wouldn't you try to enforce it?
You say it shouldn't have been granted, but it was.
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The whole patent system is fukked up. I have no sympathy for any company that tries to take advantage of that screwed up system. I hate that companies like MS/IBM/Sun et al all collect huge patent portfolios, but at least they use them defensively rather than aggressively/abusively like Tivo.
i wish someone could explain how tivo avoided being acquired. their user interface is one of the best i've seen, ever. the writing has been on the wall for them for 5 years. the fact that they still exist is a testament to how good of a device it is.
whoever is in charge of mergers / acquisitions at tivo really, really, dropped the ball. they should have been an acquisition target for every major cable company, AT&T, and every major dish company. it's essentially over for them. every TV providing entity has their own DVR now, and they are closing the gap with tivo rapidly. i've been thinking about moving to AT&T U-verse to get out from under comcast's boot, and from what i've read their DVR is as good or better than tivo.
i've had 3 tivo boxes since 2000. i feel an almost brotherly love for them as a company. yes i know how stupid that sounds. it makes me sick they couldn't figure out how to be successful.
If humans were so smart, you wouldn't have to explain the golden rule to them.
Do onto others as you would like to have them do ~1.618 times to you?
Changing the GPL is just going to make companies like Tivo stop using FOSS, they'll just move to a project that has licensing that fits their needs better.
I think you're right and I think that's one of the greatest benefits. One of the main causes of failure in BSD style projects is breaches of solidarity with the rest of the project by programmers involved. Once someone goes and sets up a new proprietary use of a project, programmers have a "prisoners dilemma". If they go quickly to the proprietary company they get benefit and money. If they stick with their project, they know many of the others will go to the other project and their project will lose value since it can't continue to grow as well and has lost some of it's best support knowledge.
I think we can see that problem for Linux with Android already. The Android and Chrome OS user space is deliberately different from the normal Linux one. If Linux had been GPLv3 licensed then normal Linux user space would be usable on Android and would compete with Android user space fairly. The benefits of the existing software would allow it to find it's place. As it is, because Android is on the GPLv2, Google can create an artificial market place, where they control entry. They then use that to ensure that only the features they wish to see which support their commercial interests go into the OS. Developers will now be split between Android/Linux and normal GNU/Linux (or GNU/XOrg/Gnome/KDE/BSD/Linux if you wish) in the same way as there was a split in the community of UNIX developers between SUN/HP etc.
Linus should really seriously think about GPLv3 relicensing if he doesn't want his project "stolen" from under him.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Have you ever invented anything in your life you wanted to earn money from? Its easy to hate the system from the outside looking in.
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Well, Tridge, was the first to 'hack' Tivo and gave a presentation at ANU shortly after tvio was launched. It used Linux, and a I believe a Sony chip.
Points to prior art being in Linux, and at Sony - not ms.
MS must be wary at pointing the finger at Linux nuts. They have documented 'Trees' for everything - and will unfurl prior art at the rate of knots. I just know CCTV software had a play bar since the year dot - with a computer - which told the secondary storage device (MagTape) where to position to. Exactly like Tivo, only bigger and 100,000 more expensive.
Hard to know if you're infringing on a patent. And it doesn't even have to be submarined.
Actually Tivo has been filing a lot of lawsuits, is not FOSS and is a system which prompted the GPLv3 so you can hardly claim this as an attack against Linux.
But the VCR patents aren't that. These DVR patents are like VCRs patenting "Recording a moving picture USING A MAGNETIC TAPE".
The VCR patents were
1) how to design the tape caddy ...
2) how to design the helical scan head
3) how to get extra time out of the same length of tape
4)
all things about HOW to solve the problems of "recording a moving picture using a magnetic tape".
These DVRs aren't doing that. They're patenting "clicking on a record button and saving it to a file named CHANNEL-TIME.mpg" on the "how to record on a DVR" problem.
In fact, some of these DVR patents are of the order of "solve the problem of recording on a DVR" as the patent on the solution of the problem of "how to record on a DVR".
I used to work for Kingston Interactive Television and we where one of the first in the world to deliver a working IPTV, EPG & VOD system consumers as a commercial product. We did this in 1999, we won awards, including an EMMA and BAFTA nomination. Kingston had been researching streaming video over the local loop for at least 10 years prior to that, even testing a narrow-band television system. It was xDSL that made it possible. See KITV in action on YouTube.
I designed the VOD & Content management system and we implemented our own solution because nobody offered what we needed as a software product. Executives from every major Television Broadcast, IT and telecom corporation visited, including Microsoft, to see KITV. It wasn't patented then because it was obvious, it wasn't novel enough then, it certainly isn't novel today. It was a well established idea in the 1990's that was waiting for the networking & server technology to match the requirements regarding latency, packet loss & QOS.
I cannot put into words how galling it is to find somebody has patented something you've already done before and done better, both cases should fail because of prior art and have their patents struck out.
Most of the companies have patent portfolios as a deterrent only.
Such companies could at least be more up front about it. For example, a company holding a patent could license the patent for all uses, provided that the licensee does not sue the company for patent infringement.
I have no idea how a copyright war would start.
The copyright war has already started in the United States: Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music and Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton. A songwriter accidentally writes a song that matches a song that was played a decade ago, and the publisher of the older song successfully sues for seven-figure damages. How should one play it safe while writing a song in such an environment?
Let's see. Skip ahead 2 minutes. That sounds like... skipping a commercial block. Which TV companies say is a Bad Thing. Sounds to me like you were being penalized for trying to skip commercials.</conspiracy>
Just saying.
Apple sues Google to help Microsoft :)
Waiting for that one to be the headline.
See, the Nexus One has a striking similarity to the iPhone. Google is perhaps one of the biggest threat's to Microsoft's solvency, particular with their superiority in search, and their vastly usable ChromeOS.
And Microsoft's Windows product has a critical role in the OS industry that helps Apple reach their target market.
It helps Apple, because it means the general population uses a product that actually is far inferior.
Since almost everyone uses Windows, Linux doesn't seem too special to the general population. The average person has difficulty seeing a benefit to Linux over say Apple.
Apple can continue to justify to people they should buy their product, because it's a "premium OS", better than OS-es that run on less-expensive hardware in every way.
If Google disrupts Microsoft's market position, it could be a huge threat... in a world where ChromeOS or Linux are predominant, MacOS has a lot less value:
The public would have good experience with simple, decent OSes, and be unimpressed with MacOS after trying it. It would make it exceedingly difficult for Apple to successfully sell their "almost the same" "100x as expensive" hardware, when the predominant OS in the market is of reasonable quality and end-user experience.
that is the whole point, Tivo didn't invent anything either, they packaged and marketted existing technology and then patented obvious progressions in it and claim they "invented" something.