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."

Comments

Patent infringement is a nuclear weapon

[amn108]

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.

Re:Patent infringement is a nuclear weapon

[Jeng]

Devils Advocate.
Hard to know if something infringes on your patent if you don't know the implementation.

Tivo's lawsuit against AT&T gave Microsoft the groundwork necessary to compare how Tivo's system works in comparison to Microsoft's system. /Devils Advocate

Re:Patent infringement is a nuclear weapon

[smidget2k4]

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.

Which is it?

[gregg]

Is this an example of "the enemy of my friend is my enemy" or the beginning of "mutual assured destruction"?

Re:Which is it?

[SilverHatHacker]

Those two aren't necessarily exclusive...

Suing TiVo for delivering content ?

[BlueTrin]

Suing TiVo for delivering content ?

Next is Neanderthal suing them for using fire or a wheel ?

Tivo

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

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.

Re:Tivo

[soundguy]

Tivo hit the market in 1999.

Re:Tivo

[Dun Malg]

Microsoft bought the stock directly from AT&T, so yes, they did pay them... directly. There is a difference, but it's largely semantic.

HOWEVER, this stock buy was in 1999, and the deal was with the old AT&T, not the current AT&T who used to be SBC before they bought the name. The old AT&T from which Microsoft bought $5 billion worth of stock is essentially now a chunk of Comcast, who bought AT&T's cable TV division. The $400 million dollar deal between Microsoft and AT&T for the Uverse infrastructure is wholly unrelated to the earlier deal.

Hoist on their own petard...

[jedidiah]

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.

Re:Hoist on their own petard...

[diamondsw]

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.

Re:Hoist on their own petard...

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Hoist on their own petard...

[AK Marc]

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).

Re:Sure have been a lot of patent suits lately

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:Hahaha, wow.

[Thinboy00]

Nevermind

Re:I wonder if there are any ms fanbois still left

[mystikkman]

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).

Re:Hahaha, wow.

[grcumb]

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.