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TiVo Sues Comcast Again, Alleging Operator's X1 Infringes Eight Patents (variety.com)
TiVo's Rovi subsidiary on Wednesday filed two lawsuits in federal district courts, alleging Comcast's X1 platform infringes eight TiVo-owned patents. "That includes technology covering pausing and resuming shows on different devices; restarting live programming in progress; certain advanced DVR recording features; and advanced search and voice functionality," reports Variety. From the report: A Comcast spokeswoman said the company will "aggressively defend" itself. "Comcast engineers independently created our X1 products and services, and through its litigation campaign against Comcast, Rovi seeks to charge Comcast and its customers for technology Rovi didn't create," the Comcast rep said in a statement. "Rovi's attempt to extract these unfounded payments for its aging and increasingly obsolete patent portfolio has failed to date."
TiVo's legal action comes after entertainment-tech vendor Rovi (which acquired the DVR company in 2016 and adopted the TiVo name) sued Comcast and its set-top suppliers in April 2016, alleging infringement of 14 patents. In November 2017, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Comcast infringed two Rovi patents -- with the cable operator prevailing on most of the patents at issue. However, because one of the TiVo patents Comcast was found to have violated covered cloud-based DVR functions, the cable operator disabled that feature for X1 customers. Comcast is appealing the ITC ruling.
TiVo's legal action comes after entertainment-tech vendor Rovi (which acquired the DVR company in 2016 and adopted the TiVo name) sued Comcast and its set-top suppliers in April 2016, alleging infringement of 14 patents. In November 2017, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Comcast infringed two Rovi patents -- with the cable operator prevailing on most of the patents at issue. However, because one of the TiVo patents Comcast was found to have violated covered cloud-based DVR functions, the cable operator disabled that feature for X1 customers. Comcast is appealing the ITC ruling.
TiVo is acting like SCO. They're using litigation rather than focusing on better products. I despise Comcast (and Charter), but these concepts shouldn't be patentable. They seem pretty obvious, and should be invalidated on those grounds. Consumers are being harmed by TiVo's aggressive litigation.
I hate software patents, but I hate Comcast even more... I'm so conflicted I don't know what to think.
While this is technically accurate... The company Rovi bought TiVo, then rebranded itself as TiVo. So it’s somewhat funny to think about the existence of a “Rovi subsidiary”.
#DeleteChrome
Now Tivo owes ME a bajillion mega-dollars!
Bwahahah! Too bad my patent doesn't cover Congressional Investigations though, I'd own the country and rename it.
TiVo should have developed an internet replacement for its technology. It blows my mind that ity bity "technology" companies are managing to build customer basses in the millions off Kodi and even individuals or small groups are managing to illegally operate streaming entities platforms (both IPTV and cloud-hosting sites similar to Mega Upload) have managed to pull off paying subscriber basses with over 500,000 and yet a well financed company like TiVo can't manage to get a piece of the action in this new market. TiVo should have been the company competing with cable. They were developing technology and digital from the start compared to a company like Netflix who had to go from old analog tech (sort of, ie DVD rentals which involved sorting machines) to digital.
TiVo isn't a patent troll, at least not in the sense we usually apply that term. TiVo actually has created products that use their patents. The problem is they're using intellectual property litigation involving dubious patents to try to replace declining revenue. Your post is definitely flamebait, but I'll address the political issue. The Republicans certainly tend to promote policies that favor big business and the wealthy. Placing more restrictions to prevent obvious and otherwise dubious patents will limit patent litigation. A patent lawsuit is a net loss because no new revenue is created in the process, though it can be lost if a business decides to stop selling a product due to patent infringement. Money may be transferred from one business to another, as part of royalties or settlements, but new revenue isn't creared. Furthermore, money is definitely lost paying the lawyers. If patent lawsuits we're less frequent, more of that money would go toward profits and business expenses, hopefully including R&D. In summary, Republicans do generally support policies that are favorable toward big business, and patent reform may actually benefit those businesses.
As a disillusioned TiVo customer, they can fly. They have junk product, junk reliability and cannot seem to figure out what they want to be. They hamstring their IOS apps(try airplaying from an iPad), it does 2/3 size on a TV where an iPhone does full screen just fine.
I hope they come to their senses but thatâ(TM)s probably wishful thinking. Once my TiVo dies, Iâ(TM)m altogether done with them.
Adding Tivo to the list.
Since the Anti-Trust laws are gone as we know them its like you giving a penny to someone if you get sued. Are you really going to miss it??
when they get to a price of 500 dollars a gb let me know then they will just evaporate as no one will buy the shit , if you morons n the usa would strike against it for a year they'd panic, lower prices properly /add decent speeds and have unlimited that is unlimted....till then fuck it
And Rovi was an abbreviation of the company's original name: Macrovision. The company that introduced analog gain control copy protection.
Each patent has a couple pages describing *exactly* what is patented and how it's different from what was done before (prior art).
They didn't patent the concepts mentioned in the summary. Slashdot summaries often mention the general topic or concept that a patent is *related to*, phrased in a way that makes it sound like someone patented the whole concept. That's not how patents work. For example, with a video cassette (vcr) you can pause it in one device, then take it to another VCR and resume watching. Nobody can patent that idea, and their patent calls out how their invention is different from what has been done before.
If you read (part of?) any of the patents and see one that seems like it was obvious at the time (not in retrospect) I'd be curious to see it. There may be one, but don't think that just because the TOPIC mentioned in the Slashdot summary is obviously interesting, that means their invention was interesting. When Slashdot says "Space X" patents rocket guidance system" that means they patented something they invented that has to do with guiding rockets; it doesn't mean they patented the idea of rocket guidance in general.
Rovi, aka Macrovision, bought TiVo. Rovi's corporate strategy _is_ to extract rent from patents and other intellectual property. Back in 2008 they spun off or sold all their software products that didn't focus on intellectual property or extracted licensing fees. Rovi isn't interested in any innovation, it's sitting on its ass trying to make a buck off their old pile of IP.
I'm not a big fan of software patents, but they exist and Comcast's defense is bogus. Independent invention is not a defense against patent infringement. I notice they didn't say anything about the patents being invalid, just that they want to claim that because Tivo didn't write the X1 code the patents don't apply.
>"Comcast engineers independently created our X1 products and services, "
Um, I guess she doesn't know how these patents work. It doesn't matter HOW it was developed/created. Could be from nothing, could have been by people who never heard of the features before, could be in a clean room, could be a 100% copy of some established product. A patent is not a copyright.
Love TiVo, hate some long physical patents, absolutely hate all software patents (also hate long copyrights, especially on obsolete/abandoned stuff), hate Comcast. Hmm, I am certainly conflicted :)
TiVo actually has created products that use their patents.
ATI created products that use the patents, before they were TiVo patents. There's a name for that, I just can't recall what it is.
I love TiVo and still use it, but they're still subsisting off the DiSH Network judgments.
Their business model over the past decade was to earn money by enforcing their patents. While I am not against the protection of intellectual property, I do have mixed feelings when a company's business plan is little more than enforcing your patent portfolio rather than your company continue to be an innovator, like the innovator TiVo was almost twenty years ago.
Kriston
It's a good thing they were awarded that pausing and resuming patent, otherwise they would surely have kept the technology hidden from the public. And if they would some day go bankrupt the technology might have been lost forever and ever. Humanity as a whole will benefit from them being given that patent, and in only two decades other people will be able to use that pause and resume technology, without having to dedicate immense research and development resources trying to duplicate what was surely created by a stroke of genious, or random happenstance.
The only reason we have the terrible set top boxes from cable companies is because they have been able to rip off these patents for years. Tivo right now, is by far the best cable experience. The only reason I have cable instead of satellite right now is because of how good the Tivo Bolt + Tivo Mini setup works.
Comcast is a huge company. Rovi is tiny in comparison. I believe the claims Rovi has are legitimate and should hold up in court.
The simplest way for Comcast to make this go away is to buy Rovi, which could be Roviâ(TM)s real intention here.
If this happens, then TiVo the product goes away, which would be bad for the market, but they had been losing money due to lost subscribers for some time before being acquired by Rovi.
Prior art means that those patents are illegitimate.
Both companies are shitholes but Rovi is in the wrong here.