Dish/Echostar injunction could Sky be next?

[healeydave]

Oh how I seriously hope this case is upheld for Tivo and Dish/Echostar has to disable the PVR functionality of all its subscribers:

http://www.engadget.com/tag/tivo,echostar

Not only will the payout be beneficial to Tivo, but perhaps they will get a new lease of life with new customers jumping ship who don't want to lose PVR functionality!?

Pending this decision being upheld, I wonder if it will set a precedent and have any re-persuasions for those other thieving b****ds know as s*y :-)

[ruperte]

Oh how I seriously hope this case is upheld for Tivo and Dish/Echostar has to disable the PVR functionality of all its subscribers:

http://www.engadget.com/tag/tivo,echostar

Not only will the payout be beneficial to Tivo, but perhaps they will get a new lease of life with new customers jumping ship who don't want to lose PVR functionality!?

Pending this decision being upheld, I wonder if it will set a precedent and have any re-persuasions for those other thieving b****ds know as s*y :-)

Patients software items for things like Automatic Rewind etc, are not allowed in the UK, so no SKY really aren't in any danger over here!

[healeydave]

I am no expert on this but I find it hard to believe a company cannot protect themselves against a complete set of features being ripped off like Season Pass etc.

[iankb]

But would they be threatened if they tried to push NDS boxes in the States?

[JudyB]

I am no expert on this but I find it hard to believe a company cannot protect themselves against a complete set of features being ripped off like Season Pass etc.

If they succeed in getting a patent for it then they can. However the UK and European approach to patents is much more rigorous than in the US and it used to be impossible to get a patent for "pure" software, although that is changing. (Historically software could only be patented if it was an integral part of something like a control system for a physical device).

The UK and Europe also make it much easier to challenge patent arguments since they are decided by a judge and I think that it is also possible to get a patent overturned after it has been granted.

In the US patent disputes are heard by a jury who also get to decide the damages to be awarded - this means that there is a risk that punitive damages will be awarded even when you thought that you had a concrete case. This also means that in practice very few, if any, patents are challenged once they have been granted. From what I understand this tends to lead to "trading" patents and out of court settlements.

[Sneals2000]

But would they be threatened if they tried to push NDS boxes in the States?

Don't DirecTV use VideoGuard - aka NDS - encryption already?

ISTR that the DirecTV DVR, which replaced the DirecTivo, when News Corp bought DirecTV, was similar to the Sky + XTV platform?

[TCM2007]

The patent in question is the one about playing a programme from the beginning while it is still recording. I don't know if they have that in the UK - and the Patent Office database isn't easy to search by company like the Us one is.

[Sneals2000]

The patent in question is the one about playing a programme from the beginning while it is still recording. I don't know if they have that in the UK - and the Patent Office database isn't easy to search by company like the Us one is.

Ah - ISTR that one of the disputed patents was to do with whether the audio and video were buffered separately or together? (Which seems a semantic rather than real issue to me?)

[TCM2007]

This one in fact, which is actually the one which basically claims the whole DVR idea:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=IeoIAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,233,389

Interestingly, this is a hardware patent - this is not anything to do with the TiVo UI or any software functionality to speak of.

[Sneals2000]

Interesting to read.

I'm surprised that this doesn't overlap with stuff like the Tektronix/GrassValley Profile broadcast hard disc video servers. These were on the market well before 1998 - News 24 launched in 1997 with its playout system entirely based on them.

They were used for time delaying broadcast TV content as well as providing quick replays and non-linear access to video.

[TCM2007]

Arguably this definition:

providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation;

Doesn't apply to Sky Plus as there is no conversion; it just records the native digital stream.

Arguably!

[bkdtv]

Doesn't apply to Sky Plus as there is no conversion; it just records the native digital stream.

Arguably!MPEG-4, MPEG-2, NTSC and PAL all meet the patent's definition of the "broadcast data."

[TCM2007]

Yes, but it specifically talks about converting them to MPEG for internal manipulation. Kind of thing a Patent lawyer could go to town on!