[mythtv-users] Tivo suing everyone in sight over DVR patents

Francesco Peeters francesco at fampeeters.com
Fri Aug 28 07:30:18 UTC 2009


Simon Hobson wrote:
> Johnny wrote:
>
>>  > Well that is just from the abstract. The legally binding part is what
>>>  they put in the claims I didn't take the time to look at the details
>>  > of that.
>
>
>> Here is the patent:
>> http://www.google.com/patents?id=IeoIAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
>>
>>
>> The part they lawyers really argue about is the 61 claims at the end
>> (page 20) that precisely define what the patent covers.
>
> Yes, I was once told to just read the first few claims. The key bit of
> this is Claim 1, and MythTV does not infringe upon it in my opinion
> (IANAL). If it came down to it, what Myth does has prior art - such as
> the (expensive) systems used way before this patent for instant
> replays during live sports coverage. Early onces used tape and a
> mechanism to looping up a lot of tape to the recorder could keep
> recording while the playback machine was shuttled back and forth as
> required, I believe some used laser disk with a separate readback head
> though I stand to be corrected on that.
>
> Anyway, the TiVo patent is clearly for something that captures and
> processes the signal for ease of playback via a 'media switch' without
> much CPU involvement - ie there's a lot of hardware in there to avoid
> needing a powerful processor capable of moving the data around and
> encoding/decoding it. Myth doesn't do that, it simply stores the
> received signal*, stores it on disk as-is*, and the cpu is responsible
> for shuttling the bits around*.
> * each on of these is specifically different to what is claimed in the
> patent.
>
> However, this is the dangerous part - there is nothing at all to stop
> TiVo suing the developers, nothing at all. The case could well be
> thrown out with prejudice at the first hearing, but that would still
> cost the defendants (probably a fair amount) to arrive at that hearing
> suitably prepared. Tivo would be very stupid to do so though, they
> would know that they would lose, and that would a) cost them, and b)
> put them at a disadvantage in future cases against others. That's
> probably the only restraining factor.
>
> That applies all the time, it's not specific to his Tivo case.
IMHO the FSF and their legal support for OpenSource projects would
probably also be a factor...  ;)

--FP


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