belawrence
It's All About The Games
join:2000-08-06
Santee, CA
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Cox HSI
| world domination
Essentially, Tivo believes that anybody who makes something even remotely resembling a DVR is infringing on them. Expect them to start going after everybody else (Motorola, Cisco) once this case concludes, Just like Verizon did after beating Vonage in court.
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Obviously you're not a golfer - Jeffery "the dude" Lebowski |
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nanoflower
join:2002-07-14
30876 | They will not be going after Motorola or Cisco. Those two companies will be using Tivo software for the DVRs so there is no reason for Tivo to go after them. They may go after DirecTV once their agreement comes to an end. |
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Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-01
IA | reply to belawrence
I agree. The patent system is flawed. |
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Hall
Premium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
 ·EarthLink
·AT&T Midwest
·Earthlink Cable Mo..
| reply to belawrence
said by belawrence  : Expect them to start going after everybody else (Motorola, Cisco) once this case concludes Time Warner will be next... They've dumped, or are dumping, their 3rd-party set-top software for DVRs and are writing it themselves. Basically, if your DVR can record a show while you watch another show 'live', you're infringing on TiVo's patent(s) and are in violation. If you don't pay the licensing fee, they're going to sue you. |
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Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
·Comcast
2 edits | reply to belawrence
said by belawrence :Essentially, Tivo believes that anybody who makes something even remotely resembling a DVR is infringing on them. Expect them to start going after everybody else (Motorola, Cisco) once this case concludes, Just like Verizon did after beating Vonage in court. The difference here is that TiVo has licensing agreements with many other companies (Cisco, Motorola, Sony, Panasonic, Comcast, Cox, DirectTV). So they won't sue them. They sued Dish, because while TiVo and Dish were in good faith negotiations, Dish copied TiVo's designs and came out with their own TiVo. |
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Dude
What Happens When I Do This
Premium
join:2000-11-20
Chicago, IL
clubs:   | reply to belawrence
Hey Tivo came up with something and others wanna copy it. I think they deserve the money
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Hall
Premium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
·EarthLink
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| said by Dude :Hey Tivo came up with something and others wanna copy it. Do you know what they came up with ? |
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Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-01
IA
·Mediacom
| reply to Dude
said by Dude :Hey Tivo came up with something and others wanna copy it. I think they deserve the money Yeah but the problem is they think they own the concept of time shifting.
So some company designs and develops a product and TiVO wants to get money off of it. |
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Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
·Comcast
| said by Anonymous :Yeah but the problem is they think they own the concept of time shifting. So some company designs and develops a product and TiVO wants to get money off of it. Actually they don't think they own the concept of time shifting. They own the TimeWarp patent, which is a specific type of time shifting designed to work on devices with very little processing power (this is the Media Switch). You can view the patent (diagrams and all) here.
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The Comcast Disney Avatar has been retired. |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to Morac
said by Morac :They sued Dish, because while TiVo and Dish were in good faith negotiations, Dish copied TiVo's designs and came out with their own TiVo. You realize that's just TIVO's side of the story, right?
Basically the TIVO patent is extremely broad; in effect, every DVR that doesn't license from them will be sued. Doesn't matter if you built your own machine from scratch with your own software and if it was being developed concurrently; It matters not.
DISH will probably end up having to pay TIVO a ton of money, and TIVO will be no better then other patent mills.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
·Comcast
| said by KrK :You realize that's just TIVO's side of the story, right? Yes, but since the courts have sided with TiVo it is now the official story.
said by KrK :Basically the TIVO patent is extremely broad; in effect, every DVR that doesn't license from them will be sued. Doesn't matter if you built your own machine from scratch with your own software and if it was being developed concurrently; It matters not. If you actually read the patent, it is not nearly as broad as you think.
To summarize, the patent covers the case where a MPEG-2 stream is split into audio and video portions and then tagged with a time stamp before it is written to disk. To jump to a location in the video, the time stamp is used to locate the video and audio data which is then merged and output.
The key part of the patent is the Barton Media switch which does the splitting/merging and time stamping. This allows DVR functionality with a low performance computer. The original TiVo's CPU ran at 54 MHz which is not fast enough to provide DVR functionality without the Barton Media Switch.
To work around the patent, all you need to do is not include a media switch. This is what Dish supposedly did in their new software. If that is true, then their new software does not violate TiVo's patent. The problem is that an injunction against Dish is already in effect and to get it lifted they'd need to prove the new software is different enough from the old one.
As for other companies (software and hardware) DVRs running on modern machines have more than enough processing power to provide DVR functionality without a media switch, plus the patent only covers MPEG-2 so things like Windows Media Center aren't covered by the patent.
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The Comcast Disney Avatar has been retired. |
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herdfan
Premium
join:2003-01-25
Hurricane, WV
| reply to nanoflower
said by nanoflower :They may go after DirecTV once their agreement comes to an end. Not a chance. Remember, DirecTV now owns ReplayTV's IP. Replay owns as many patents for DVR tech as TiVo does, so DirecTV would counter-sue in a minute if TiVo did that. |
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