Lawsuit happy TiVo, program guides & countersuits. TiVo just sell your product & stop your greed. - Page 2

I don't see how suing someone for copying your patented work is morally objectionable. I also don't see that DVRs are an obvious invention. They might seem obvious after the fact, but I recall thinking how novel the idea was when I first heard of Tivo and ReplayTV back in 99-2000. That said, I think Tivo should have reached out to cable/satellite companies in the beginning and offered them favorable terms for supplying DVRs like they are doing now. It is obviously working, and it probably would have prevented a lot of stupid litigation.

FWIW: I am a bit a of Tivo fanboy. It was my first DVR, and I still find it to be more intuitive and reliable than all of the non-Tivo offerings I have used over the years. The code is clearly more mature and better designed the the slap-dash offerings from TWC, DirecTV, and others.

-Ted

The first positive note I have seen in years and it is dated April 2012.

Perhaps the DVR could finally be brought from the 18th to the 21st century.

The 30-40 year old technology is getting very stale and is a very poor choice for consumers.

To answer the question: Basically - nothing; that was my point. As long as TiVo is able to fool the courts that their patents are good (dubious BS at best), I am sure they will continue to extend their patents to infinity and well beyond 2018 in order to keep all others out of the market.

Now "if" Sony (or Panasonic or anyone else) is able to change that in the near future I have no idea. We all know Sony's (and others) response to date has been - it's just not worth the hassle.

Once again... such as...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post20944134

That is exactly what they did do. As an example back in 2000 they had a DirecTV TiVo. Eventually DirecTV dumped TiVo, stole their intellectual property and released their own DVR. Others weren't even as nice. Hence the lawsuits.

When you get to punitive damages, it's the jury that awards it, so they're who might be at fault.

Not sure that's exactly how or what happened. DirecTV had a relationship with TiVo, bought the ReplayTV rights, did build DVRs without TiVo, and has since entered into another agreement with TiVo.

Now I wonder if TiVo is going after Motorola for their DVR?

"The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888"

since other members brought up the big 3, the windshield wiper patent suit is most notable

there was a movie about this guy's patent fight...which he eventually won, but at great cost to his career and family

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns

sorry Bruce for OT post: I will issue an infraction to myself...

$800 million easily. The money the people who stole Tivo's IP (per the court findings) made off of that IP easily exceeds the money Tivo has made on litigation. Stop pretending Tivo is some huge, evil company. They are minuscule compared to Microsoft, Dish/Echostar, AT&T, etc. Not sure what your beef is, but it sounds like the patent system is to blame. If you don't like it, get into government and change it.

-Ted

Yes, markrubin's post was totally off-topic. This thread is about huge giant big-business meanies suing other huge giant big-business meanies, as well as other small startups that are trying to become huge giant big-business meanies themselves. Not at all about the little guy suing the biggest meanies of all, and winning. Not $10 million, but a total of $28 million according to the article that vb didn't bother to read all of.. Oops . . .

Intellectual Property videobruce.

Damages are most often based on obtained benefits, actual loses and lessons learned. As such the amount is irrelevant without taking all of the involved factors into account. I guess if someone stole one billion from a bank they should only be required to pay back $40 million.

This thread is way in need of a lock. None of this is new, and very little has relevance to the forum it's in because it's primarily about patents, not DVR tech.

OP discussed this with AVS before he posted: to me it is an interesting read

And if it isn't you can merely scan past it without reading.

As I noted above, some people have the mistaken belief that if the TiVo patents were not in force (and the technology was free for the taking) there would be a flood of cheap chinese DVR's into the US by companies beating each other over the head to lower the price. That way they could buy all the DVR's they want at the insignificant amounts they are willing to pay. That's the real "beef" -- everything else is just ranting around it.

These TiVo patent rants are like Ebola outbreaks. The threads pop up in various forums from time to time blaming TiVo for whatever product that can't be bought or bought walmart cheap. They burn hot and fast for a little while until patient zero loses interest, then they burn out. I know there have been several such threads blaming TiVo for the death of DVD recorders; I'll bet somewhere in the AVS archive there is a thread blaming TiVo's patents for the death of the VCR.

Also, a lot of people resent the fact that TiVo (in most cases) has a ongoing fee. At the same time they refuse to accept Lifetime as being valid since it should be free to start with...

Which paints TiVo in an evil light. Personally, if one is looking for a digital VCR the Channel Master more than fits the bill and proves it's certainly possible to market a competitive product. However at the same time it clearly lacks features such as intelligent conflict resolution which might be covered by TiVo's patents. Although other DVRs appear to be more advanced so again it must be possible or they are obtaining a license from TiVo... which makes it possible either way.

My take and then I'll bow out of this silliness. I believe TiVo has never ever wanted to be a hardware manufacturer and all along have simply wanted to license their software to run on various boxes. Since virtually no one would license such they were forced to produce hardware and also forced to protect their IP. Without their IP rights I'm guessing they would have been gone by now. Hopefully, it carries them until they are competitive enough to compete overseas (as they are starting to now) and as well here. I think they should get rewarded for their foresight and to some degree for creating an industry.

Me too. It will burn out of its own accord.