TiVo may have a number of patents on the technology to make it possible to do on what was low cost hardware in 1995 those patents don't need to be infringed to do a brute force version on what is by todays standards low end hardware.
Echostar may not need to infringe TiVo's patents. That doesn't mean that they aren't. After all, if TiVo's methods let them save a few bucks on the hardware, that could amount to quite a bit when multiplied by the number of units.
And perhaps there is still some advantage to TiVo's methods. By most accounts, PVR software that runs on far more powerful PC hardware still has trouble matching TiVo's reliable, glitch-free operation. Doing something is one thing. Doing it reliably is often quite another.
Well, you forget that it also must be a nonobvious invention as well. A VCR that was novel, yet not really an improvement over the prior art, isn't worthy of a patent.
VHS was most certainly not an improvement over Sony's beta system; in most respects it was decidedly inferior (at least the initial version). Patents don't have to be superior, just novel. There's a reason why many patents never get picked up for licensing.
It would be nice if TiVo actually implemented some more of the features they have patented. For example:
With respect to FIG. 13, a high-level system view is shown which implements a VCR backup. The Output Module 1303 sends TV signals to the VCR 1307. This allows the user to record TV programs directly on to video tape. The invention allows the user to queue up programs from disk to be recorded on to video tape and to schedule the time that the programs are sent to the VCR 1307. Title pages (EPG data) can be sent to the VCR 1307 before a program is sent. Longer programs can be scaled to fit onto smaller video tapes by speeding up the play speed or dropping frames.
I'm not surprised that this notion has been abandoned by the courts. It never made much sense. According to that idea, if I implement an algorithm using hardwired digital logic and embody it in a custom device, it is patentable, but if I implement the exact same algorithm on a general purpose computer, it is not. Even before software patents were explicitly ruled valid, patent law already covered other types of algorithms, such as industrial procedures.
Does anyone remember when there was at least the polite pretense of patents having to describe a new and non-obvious METHOD?
Actually, according to the article,
The suit, filed in federal district court in Texas, alleges that EchoStar's DVR infringes TiVo's ``Time Warp'' patent, which includes the
method used to allow viewers to record one program while watching another and the storage format that supports advanced ``TrickPlay'' capabilities such as pausing live television, rewinding and slow motion.
It seems to me that there might well be some non-obvious aspects to implementing these features on a system that can be profitably sold for a couple of hundred dollars or so.
TiVO wasn't "way out in front" with their technology. They were granted a patent in 1998. Those of us who had video capture cards before then were able to do the exact same things TiVO now claims to have "invented".
So back in 1995 or '96, when TiVo presumably filed for the patent, anybody with a videocard and a relatively low-powered PC could digitize TV while simultaneously playing back? Keep in mind that TiVo's patent presumably covers not merely the concept of digitizing TVs, but the software methods and data structures that make it efficient enough to implement on a device that sells for a couple of hundred bucks.
So, you think that this is a valid patent? TiVo implements a mechanical tape VCR using digital storage and processing, and suddenly an old idea with loads of prior are is patent-worthy?
As a matter of fact, you could implement an actual mechanical VCR, with exactly the same capabilities as existing VCRs, and it would be patent-worthy if you came up with a novel method of accomplishing those same functions. JVC did exactly this when they patented VHS, even though Sony already had a VCR patent. This was possible because patents cover a specific method of doing something, not merely the idea of doing it. So if you come up with a new way of doing something familiar, you can get a patent on it.
Allow me to shoot this thread dead once and for all: Prove it.
Yes, that's a reliable way to shoot this subthread dead. You certainly can't prove that such a law will be unduly expensive, or that it will somehow reduce the ability of the police to deal with more serious crime. And I can't prove that it's a relatively benign measure that merely adds a little extra deterence to existing statutes, with virtually no cost or detrimental social impact. After all, the only plausible way to prove anything about the impact of a law is to examine the consequences after it has been in place for a few years.
If it's not having a noticeable impact because it's not going to court, how is it going to add deterence?
The penalties are fairly severe, so it doesn't take a lot of prosecutions to be a deterrent.
As the text notes, it doesn't address insider ripoffs and stolen reels.
Yes, this seems to be a rare case of a law that benefits almost everybody, and costs almost nothing. The industry benefits, because it reduces (somewhat) the supply of lousy copies that may bleed off theater profits. Even the people who are looking for decent pirated copies benefit because there will be fewer crappy theater copies to confuse matters.
Outcome 1: Theatres just throw people with camcorders out, just like they do now. The law changes nothing (they can already be arrested for being obnoxious and disruptive). The law is useless and threatens to criminalize people who didn't do anything wrong (go ahead - how long until having a camera phone in the theatre is a crime? It's a slippery slope argument, yes, but the past is not in favor of anything else in this regard.)
Even if the law is only rarely enforced, the increased penalties add deterrence, because prospective filmers will never know what theater manager or moviegoer might be a stickler and call the cops. Consequence: somewhat fewer lousy copies and counterfeits going around, and zero negative effect on the legitimate consumer who has no reason to bring a video camera into a theater, anyway. And since the law is designed to deter taping the movies, and camera phones can't do this, your slippery slope seems pretty firm to me.
YOU, the taxpayer, would be paying for you local police and courts to prosecute copyright infringement on MPAA material!
...and of course the taxpayer will also be collecting the fines. But both are likely to be negligible, since I imagine that these cases will not go to court often enough to have a noticable impact, positive or negative, on the city budget.
The cops have got more important things to do than chase fat guys in sweats with camcorders.
Frankly, it seems to be about on the level of importance with a lot of things that the cops do, such as ticketing improperly parked cars and directing traffic. But in practice, I doubt if there will be any real "chasing" going on, since most of the time theaters will probably just kick the guys with cameras out, pressing charges only if they become obnoxious.
So if you think kindap, rape, murder, and torture are all the same as running a camcorder in the theatre
This is pretty foolish. Does something have to be equivalent to "kidnap, rape, and murder" to be illegal? Even with the new law, the penalties are hardly comparable.
While it's (somewhat) unfortunate that people are going to be hurt unfairly as a result of this horrible crime of camcording, I can think of much graver injustices in the world that need to be dealt with at a criminal level.
This seems to me to be the most foolish cheap shot in existence: "Why are we worrying about problem X when problem Y is so much worse?" Presumably, there is one "worst" problem in the world, and we should stop trying to deal with all the others until that one is solved.
I'm not going to give up too many (read: any) tears because some preening pretty-boy actor had to take a salary cut to $5 million dollars for a single movie from $20 million. You won't see me bawling when some executive can't afford to replace his beater 2 year old Ferrari because of the horrible, horrible "pirates".
Have you looked at the credits of a movie lately? You might notice that only a small fraction of the people listed are "pretty-boy actors" and Ferrari-owning executives. If budgets have to be reduced due to lower profits, do you seriously imagine that the pretty boy actors and wealthy executives will take the hit? Or is it conceivable that they'll just hire a few less carpenters and special-effects technicians? (and perhaps the movies will look a bit crappier, but who cares? it's worth it to have the essential freedom to run a videocamera in a theater)
life expectancy has increased tremendously over the past hundred years, although medical advances probably greatly outweigh any negatives caused by pollutants
Actually, the major part of the increase in average life expectancy predated most medical advances, and is almost certainly the result in improvements in public health (e.g. less shit in our water). I believe there's a bit of a blip when antibiotics came in, but that's about it.
Just from basic physics and chemistry, we know that if a chemical is anywhere around, it will be present in the environment and the human body at some concentration, so all this means is that modern analytical techniques have finally developed enough sensitivity to demonstrate what everybody with any sense knew already. The hard part is figuring out what the biological consequences of these tiny concentrations are--in most cases, the answer is likely to be somewhere between negligible and none.
With magnetic brain imaging using SQUIDs (which can located brain activity in real time) and gamma knife [uams.edu] technology, which can destroy specific pieces of brain tissue without opening up a person's head, why wouldn't this be possible?
Even if SQUIDs were good enough to resolve single neurons, the number of neurons involved in a memory is likely immense, so this seems a very difficult approach.
Ketamine, a "dissociative anesthetic" used mainly for veterinary purposes (it is also an illicit recreational drug with the street name "special K") also has this property. It blocks NMDA-type glutamate receptors that seem to play a critical role in establishment of memories.
Current view is that memory resides in changes in synaptic weighting, mediated by changes in receptor number or post-translational modification of receptors, triggered by synchronous activation of multiple synaptic inputs. All of these processes are in principle reversible. One can imagine a drug or gene "therapy", for example, that erases memory traces. The subject would be administered the drug, then would be "reminded" of the information which he is desired to forget. The effect of the drug would be to cause stimulation of the memory associated synapses to have the opposite effect from normal, thereby erasing the memory. There is some experimental evidence that this is feasible; simple memories (e.g. a rat's memory of which way to turn in a maze) have apparently been erased.
At the very least, there would be physical evidence that a procedure like that had been performed. Doesn't seem like a very stealthy or effective technique when it would be possible to detect.
However, the physical evidence might well be at the single-cell level, requiring dissection to detect.
But I don't see anyone protecting me from low-quality official products. I suspect you're wrong, in other words.
If a legitimate product is faulty low-quality, one can return it to the manufacturer for service, or refuse to purchase from that manufacturer in the future. However, if a counterfeit product is faulty, not only does the consumer have little recourse, but the blame falls unfairly upon the manufacturer of the legitimate product. Hence, counterfeiting hurts business and hurts the consumer.
What governments have no business interfering with is commerce or competition.
However, fraud, such as product counterfeiting, interferes with competition. True competition can occur only when the consumer is able to identify the manufacturer of a product.
Seems to me policemen have much better things to do than try and help a private establishment such as a theater enforce its own house rules.
Government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from low-quality counterfeit products and protecting local businesses such as video stores from competition from illicit copies. And there really is no good reason to bring a video camera into a movie theater, so the low imposes little burden on honest citizens. In practice, the police are likely to be involved only rarely, if a camera-carrying patron becomes obstreperous when asked to leave.
Mildly interesting article, but it lost me at the point that it first says it's bad to go jogging with a hard-drive based player because it might theoretically skip, and then turns around and recommends CD players.
There's no implication about it--that was the explicit point of the article: Although "the iPod is still our favorite overall player," there are some niches for which it may not the ideal choice.
Mildly interesting article, but it lost me at the point that it first says it's bad to go jogging with a hard-drive based player because it might theoretically skip, and then turns around and recommends CD players.
However, to be fair, he doesn't recommend them for joggers. For joggers, he recommends solid state players. CD players he recommends for people who can't afford the iPod
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Echostar may not need to infringe TiVo's patents. That doesn't mean that they aren't. After all, if TiVo's methods let them save a few bucks on the hardware, that could amount to quite a bit when multiplied by the number of units.
And perhaps there is still some advantage to TiVo's methods. By most accounts, PVR software that runs on far more powerful PC hardware still has trouble matching TiVo's reliable, glitch-free operation. Doing something is one thing. Doing it reliably is often quite another.
VHS was most certainly not an improvement over Sony's beta system; in most respects it was decidedly inferior (at least the initial version). Patents don't have to be superior, just novel. There's a reason why many patents never get picked up for licensing.
Back several years ago when TiVo first introduced their PVR and presumably filed for their patents?
I'm not surprised that this notion has been abandoned by the courts. It never made much sense. According to that idea, if I implement an algorithm using hardwired digital logic and embody it in a custom device, it is patentable, but if I implement the exact same algorithm on a general purpose computer, it is not. Even before software patents were explicitly ruled valid, patent law already covered other types of algorithms, such as industrial procedures.
Actually, according to the article,
It seems to me that there might well be some non-obvious aspects to implementing these features on a system that can be profitably sold for a couple of hundred dollars or so.So back in 1995 or '96, when TiVo presumably filed for the patent, anybody with a videocard and a relatively low-powered PC could digitize TV while simultaneously playing back? Keep in mind that TiVo's patent presumably covers not merely the concept of digitizing TVs, but the software methods and data structures that make it efficient enough to implement on a device that sells for a couple of hundred bucks.
Yes, that's a reliable way to shoot this subthread dead. You certainly can't prove that such a law will be unduly expensive, or that it will somehow reduce the ability of the police to deal with more serious crime. And I can't prove that it's a relatively benign measure that merely adds a little extra deterence to existing statutes, with virtually no cost or detrimental social impact. After all, the only plausible way to prove anything about the impact of a law is to examine the consequences after it has been in place for a few years.
The penalties are fairly severe, so it doesn't take a lot of prosecutions to be a deterrent.
As the text notes, it doesn't address insider ripoffs and stolen reels.
Yes, this seems to be a rare case of a law that benefits almost everybody, and costs almost nothing. The industry benefits, because it reduces (somewhat) the supply of lousy copies that may bleed off theater profits. Even the people who are looking for decent pirated copies benefit because there will be fewer crappy theater copies to confuse matters.
life expectancy has increased tremendously over the past hundred years, although medical advances probably greatly outweigh any negatives caused by pollutants
Actually, the major part of the increase in average life expectancy predated most medical advances, and is almost certainly the result in improvements in public health (e.g. less shit in our water). I believe there's a bit of a blip when antibiotics came in, but that's about it.
Just from basic physics and chemistry, we know that if a chemical is anywhere around, it will be present in the environment and the human body at some concentration, so all this means is that modern analytical techniques have finally developed enough sensitivity to demonstrate what everybody with any sense knew already. The hard part is figuring out what the biological consequences of these tiny concentrations are--in most cases, the answer is likely to be somewhere between negligible and none.
With magnetic brain imaging using SQUIDs (which can located brain activity in real time) and gamma knife [uams.edu] technology, which can destroy specific pieces of brain tissue without opening up a person's head, why wouldn't this be possible?
Even if SQUIDs were good enough to resolve single neurons, the number of neurons involved in a memory is likely immense, so this seems a very difficult approach.
Ketamine, a "dissociative anesthetic" used mainly for veterinary purposes (it is also an illicit recreational drug with the street name "special K") also has this property. It blocks NMDA-type glutamate receptors that seem to play a critical role in establishment of memories.
Current view is that memory resides in changes in synaptic weighting, mediated by changes in receptor number or post-translational modification of receptors, triggered by synchronous activation of multiple synaptic inputs. All of these processes are in principle reversible. One can imagine a drug or gene "therapy", for example, that erases memory traces. The subject would be administered the drug, then would be "reminded" of the information which he is desired to forget. The effect of the drug would be to cause stimulation of the memory associated synapses to have the opposite effect from normal, thereby erasing the memory. There is some experimental evidence that this is feasible; simple memories (e.g. a rat's memory of which way to turn in a maze) have apparently been erased.
However, the physical evidence might well be at the single-cell level, requiring dissection to detect.
Funny...I flipped through the constituion and I didn't read anything about that.
You must have missed the first sentence. It falls under "promote the general welfare."
If a legitimate product is faulty low-quality, one can return it to the manufacturer for service, or refuse to purchase from that manufacturer in the future. However, if a counterfeit product is faulty, not only does the consumer have little recourse, but the blame falls unfairly upon the manufacturer of the legitimate product. Hence, counterfeiting hurts business and hurts the consumer.
What governments have no business interfering with is commerce or competition.
However, fraud, such as product counterfeiting, interferes with competition. True competition can occur only when the consumer is able to identify the manufacturer of a product.
Seems to me policemen have much better things to do than try and help a private establishment such as a theater enforce its own house rules.
Government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from low-quality counterfeit products and protecting local businesses such as video stores from competition from illicit copies. And there really is no good reason to bring a video camera into a movie theater, so the low imposes little burden on honest citizens. In practice, the police are likely to be involved only rarely, if a camera-carrying patron becomes obstreperous when asked to leave.
But there's a difference. Those products you just mentioned by and large cost less than $50.
The only one that cheap is the Dustbuster. A good rechargeable electric toothbrush is $100. Good electric razors cost about as much as an iPod.
Mildly interesting article, but it lost me at the point that it first says it's bad to go jogging with a hard-drive based player because it might theoretically skip, and then turns around and recommends CD players.
There's no implication about it--that was the explicit point of the article: Although "the iPod is still our favorite overall player," there are some niches for which it may not the ideal choice.