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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."
Wow it looks like Microsoft wants another Monopoly, I'm shocked!
Is this an example of "the enemy of my friend is my enemy" or the beginning of "mutual assured destruction"?
Nobody wins but the lawyers.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Humans are so damn smart it is scary.
If humans were so smart, you wouldn't have to explain the golden rule to them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What makes you think any of these companies want reform?
They love this game of Mutually Assured Destruction.
They end up cross licensing patents and it creates barries for upstarts.
More importantly, they have the money and the lobbyists to keep the game rigged in their favor.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Tivo a surrogate for Linux? Bullshit. Tivo's abuse of GPL loopholes is what prompted the changes to GPLv3.
Not true. In a capitalist society the golden rule is: If it makes money and isn't illegal, do it.
If we're so proud about winning the cold war, how come we keep complaining about the precise thing that we were fighting for?
I hate printers.
Well, so says Stallman, but Torvalds sees nothing wrong with that.
Besides, this is a nuance probably lost on Microsoft.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
For the same reason is wasn't laughed out of the patent office in the first place ... the patent office are a bunch of assholes who rubber stamp any patent that ends in the words "... using a computer".
I mean seriously, prior art ?
A DVR is nothing more than a "VCR using a computer" ... you see how that magic phrase works now ?
Even in computer terms, the TiVo is not the first playback device that had a seek bar to rewind / forward-wind content to the desired position. This should never have made it out of the patent office's door (along with about another 100,000 software "innovation" patents each year).
Except Tivo wasn't a patent troll - they actually produced a best-of-class product that the courts agreed was being infringed on. I know patent litigation is unpopular (and for good reason), but Tivo appeared to be a case where it was Working As Intended.
We'll see with Microsoft, although the timing is certainly suspect.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
But their patents are about as great as amazon one-click. Nothing they did was new or novel enough that it should have been patentable.
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.
AT&T declined to comment on Microsoft's legal actions.
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).
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).
Except... that sleeping on your rights for that purpose gives them an affirmative defense against you: laches
Still.. even the threat of suing, and the legal fees might (in some cases) be enough incentive for the target to be persuaded to do what you want...
No, it means they cross license, and the only ones who lose are those third parties who wish to enter the same market and will now have to license both patents.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I thought it was:
1: If it makes money and it's legal, do it.
2: If it makes money and it's illegal but makes more money then it would cost to be legal, do it.
3: If it makes money and it's illegal but would cost too much to do, change the law.
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.
Oh I see now, its WAY FUCKING BETTER THAN A VCR.
Yes, you paid them lots of money so you have to run to their defense, I get it. However, nothing changes the fact that they are a VCR on a computer. Once you have a non-linear medium, the features you mention are obvious. They didn't "invent" anything a 5 year old didn't already think up 20 years ago, they were just the first to use it commercially, so they get copyrights on ideas (when you shouldn't be able to copyright ideas, just specific implementations of them) that are simple, obvious, and often not even new (other than the "on a computer" part).
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