Oh Tivo, How I Hate Thee and Thy New Patent
February 19th, 2010
I love my DVR. I mean I really, really love my DVR. There are three hard and fast rules in my world: 1. Don’t drink the last Diet Dr. Pepper; 2. Don’t eat the last bag of Doritos; 3. Never, ever, change the DVR schedule. My wife once deleted my scheduled recording of Pass Time in favor of Grey’s Anatomy and we had to go to counseling for six months.
TiVo has now been granted a patent that may mean the death of one of the most important features on any DVR. The TiVo patent covers the company’s Season Pass software that resides on its DVRs. What the patent really covers is any system that allows the DVR to resolve conflicts when scheduled recordings overlap.
Without that software, the DVR would not know what shows to record and what show to skip. TiVo is a big fan of suing anyone who treads close to one of its patents so expect wide scale suits to be filed any day now since every DVR on the globe has this feature. A reported workaround may be to put the scheduling software on a remote server somewhere since the patent is for client side software only.
[via DavisFreeberg.com]
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Categories: Home Entertainment Technology
Tags: dvr legal patent season pass television tivo
Software patents are completely wrong. They allow companies with money to use that as a weapon against competitors. Software patents must be forbidden!
wrongo. Season passes didn’t exist until Tivo invented it. Shouldn’t they be paid for the IP they created?
Correcto! As much as I miss my little Tivo, unfortunately DirecTV left them years ago but “allegedly” will be coming back, they had the foresight to work out an arrangement with Tivo to license the “technology” now AT&T, Verizon and Dish Network scoffed at such an idea. Those folks MAY be rethinking that position. Tivo has been getting the short of the stick for many years, they inventing the whole DVR concept; THEY DESERVE TO GET CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE! And it really irks me when people say “Yeah, I have Tivo!” and all your really have is a cheap impersonator of a DVR; myself included. GO TIVO GO! GO TIVO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As much as I loved my TiVo for the 5 years I had one, I have to say that the DirecTV DVRs keep improving. I have the HD version, and they keep adding new features all the time, and they’ve made numerous speed improvements over the years as well. And all I can say is that manipulating my schedule on the DirecTV HD DVR is way faster and easier than the Season Pass manager on my old TiVo.
And personally, I think granting patents for “business process” or vague application functionality is a crock that’s primarily designed to line the pockets of IP lawyers (no offense to my friend who’s an IP lawyer). Concepts such as “hyperlinked documents”, “browser plug-ins” and “one-click shopping” are just a few of the travesties that have found their way through the patent courts over the years, and I think that needs to stop.
If you have a DirecTV DVR you have nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future. DirecTV’s agreement with TiVo includes a mutual agreement not to sue over DVR patents for the duration of the agreement.
TiVo is exactly the kind of company that the patent system was intended to protect. They invented a set of technologies and processes that made digital video recorders not just possible, but practical, effective, and affordable. Big companies like Dish, and (allegedly) AT&T and Verizon decided that instead of licensing that technology, they would copy the technology and then effectively lock TiVo out of competing with them.
TiVo isn’t some patent troll suing companies for no good reason. They simply want to be able to compete fairly in the market they created.
Who cares, TiVo will still work! Drama queen…