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Microsoft Sues TiVo
doperative notes that "TiVo [is accused] of infringing four patents. Microsoft is asking that TiVo be barred from importing the digital-video recorders, which are primarily made in Mexico and sold in the U.S... The four patents in the ITC case relate to program schedules and selection, controlling the interface, and a way to restrict use of the DVR based on the program’s rating."
I respectfully disagree. Back in the day (2001?) I had a Microsoft UltimateTV for our satellite service. I felt the technology was considerably more sophisticated and easier to use than Tivo. IIRC, the user interface was much quicker and effective and it also had dual tuners. I believe MS stopped selling it less than a year after release for whatever reason. I kept using it as my preferred DVR until DirecTV released their HD DVR. Granted, these patents appear amazingly broad and I have personal issue with software patents like this, but saying MS cannot compete on merits is not true, at least in this case, IMHO.
I've looked at those patents. They're not "inventions", they're requirements documents. If that is the criteria, I should patent everything I ever developed requirements for and coded.
tivo cares nothing for it's users, and the sooner they go out of business the better.
once upon a time they had a great product, and they made it terrible by forcing annoying advertisements in all their menus, as soon as you pause anything, over live tv when a product is featured, and they don't provide digital over the air programming info for non-cable subscribers. 100% of customer contact goes through a call center which is powerless to perform all but the most basic tasks.