[mythtv] Unskippable ads???? Nah!

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 12:57 +0100, Colin Guthrie wrote:
> http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/19/philips_enforced_ads_patent/
> 
> I trust we will be silently ignoring these "flags" if this patent ever 
> comes to anything?
> Do I even need to ask? ;)

We would need to license the patent from them to not skip
the ads in the US, right? But of course we could use the
flags for our own use, say enforced ad skipping.

Which explains why this patent won't be implemented unless
they can convince the US congress and the president to pass
a law requiring PVR makers to license the idea from them
and implement it in their software. The congress won't do
that without a _lot_ of bribes, which is not going to happen
with a patent that is on such an old idea and is so obvious.
There is chance they could spend all this money on bribes,
just to have their patent invalidated. More likely, this is
a defensive patent, so that no one else pursues this route
to extortion and forces Philips to either pay the extortion
or take a chance on the patent office and a jury. A patent+law
like this could become a vampire like Macrovision or an
extortion supported zombie like Unisys in the 1990's and
I'm sure Philips wants that about as much as we do.

-- Daniel