KenAF
join:2006-01-23
Arlington, VA
4 edits | reply to ravensfan55
Re: Is TiVo crazy? Litigation against Motorola or any other hardware-only supplier poses challenges.
Motorola does not ship any boxes with DVR software. None of the Motorola DVRs are functional as delivered. They require software from the cable company to run. Many of TiVo's patent claims relate to the interaction of the hardware and software (i.e. how the software should use the hardware); if there's no software, those claims don't apply.
TiVo does have hardware claims as well, but it's much more difficult to make a case on that alone, because CPUs in these products feature a number of programmable functions. These programmable functions could be used to create a crippled DVR (by today's standards) that does not infringe. No cable provider would offer such a crippled DVR, but since Motorola does not supply the software, they can claim non-infringing uses for their hardware, regardless of whether any MSO would actually use the hardware in that way.
An example of a crippled DVR would be one that does not allow you to watch a recording while you record something else. Another example would be a DVR that does not allow you to use trickplay functions (pause, replay, rewind, etc) on liveTV while you record something else. |
