Tivo Echostar lawsuit info source?

HiDefGator · 10-20-2005, 09:54 PM

Does anyone have a website link or other details that fully explain the Tivo lawsuit against Echostar? I'm looking for more details than it's over Tivo's "timeshifting multimedia patent".

thanks

DesignDawg · 10-20-2005, 10:20 PM

Who needs sources?! Everyone here knows EVERYTHING already!! TiVo has a patent lock on every feature ever implemented, imagined, or planned for any dvr EVER. TiVo has a patent on the very essence of being. TiVo is god. Long live TiVo.

Countdown until someone (you know who you are) comes and posts all the information you could ever hope to hear, as if he sits in the jury box....

3...2...1...

jfh3 · 10-21-2005, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiDefGator

Does anyone have a website link or other details that fully explain the Tivo lawsuit against Echostar? I'm looking for more details than it's over Tivo's "timeshifting multimedia patent".

thanks

Why don't you just go to the court site and read the related case files?

http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/

You can register for a PACER account (free); copies cost $0.08 per page.

Case number is 2:04-cv-1 TIVO Inc. v. ECHOSTAR Communications.

The complaint is on the FAQ section; all the good stuff you'll have to get through PACER.

goony · 10-21-2005, 12:57 AM

Some PDFs available without registration:
Complaint 01/15/2004
Amended Complaint 01/15/2004

HiDefGator · 10-21-2005, 08:43 AM

thanks. these are exactly what I was looking for.

herdfan · 10-21-2005, 09:08 AM

Any word on how it progressing so far?

cmtar · 10-21-2005, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by herdfan

Any word on how it progressing so far?

It has been delayed untill March because the Marshall for the courtroom was only available for two weeks.

jones07 · 10-21-2005, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DesignDawg

Who needs sources?! Everyone here knows EVERYTHING already!! TiVo has a patent lock on every feature ever implemented, imagined, or planned for any dvr EVER. TiVo has a patent on the very essence of being. TiVo is god. Long live TiVo.

Countdown until someone (you know who you are) comes and posts all the information you could ever hope to hear, as if he sits in the jury box....

3...2...1...

Hahahhahah...............................you guys

But your post is not far from some folks thinking

Bob Coxner · 10-21-2005, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmtar

It has been delayed untill March because the Marshall for the courtroom was only available for two weeks.

Hehe. Marshall is the name of the city where the suit is being heard. The courthouse *in* Marshall was only available for two weeks. The US Marshall there is probably available most of the time. :-)

grooves12 · 10-21-2005, 02:54 PM

Just my personal opinion on this is that Tivo's patents will not be enforcable against Dish. Now, I am not an expert, but I have sat in on some pretty lengthy conversations between my mother and a top patent lawyer re: products she designs for her company. Typically if a patent is TOO specific, it is not enforceable if you change one small component of it. In fact, the business segment she is in has competitors that often change small things just to get around patents and there isn't a lot that can be done.

The big red flag I see, and the one that the entire patent seems to hinge on is that it says that the device will take broadcasts and CONVERT them to an mpeg stream for storage. As we all know... no conversion takes place in the combo boxes that Dish/DirecTV/CableCo's offer. Therefor Tivo's patent is not describing one of those devices. If Tivo had gone through and tried to patent each of their software capabilities in relation to manipulating MPEG streams directly, they might have a case... but I would think those are owned by copyright of the MPEG group. Then there is also the issue that they SPECIFICALLY mention Mpeg as the storage medium... if they win this lawsuit Dish/DirecTV could change their compression algorithm to something else (say WMV or something different entirely) and successfully argue that it is different.

Basically, I beleive this patent would hold against someone that is selling standalone's, like ReplayTV. But, for the combo boxes it is not written in a way to cover those.

goony · 10-21-2005, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grooves12

... if they win this lawsuit Dish/DirecTV could change their compression algorithm to something else (say WMV or something different entirely) and successfully argue that it is different.

Ain't gonna happen. The sat rcvr/dvr combo box is designed to store the MPEG compressed datastream that was uplinked at the source; hardware in the box decodes this stream during playback. Not using MPEG would also impact all of the non-DVR receivers as well.

cmtar · 10-21-2005, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

Hehe. Marshall is the name of the city where the suit is being heard. The courthouse *in* Marshall was only available for two weeks. The US Marshall there is probably available most of the time. :-)

Hey you know what i meant lol

Curtis · 10-21-2005, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grooves12

The big red flag I see, and the one that the entire patent seems to hinge on is that it says that the device will take broadcasts and CONVERT them to an mpeg stream for storage. As we all know... no conversion takes place in the combo boxes that Dish/DirecTV/CableCo's offer. Therefor Tivo's patent is not describing one of those devices.

From the patent:

"Analog TV streams are converted to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation, while pre-formatted MPEG streams are extracted from the digital TV signal and presented in a similar format to encoded analog streams. "

Curtis · 10-21-2005, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grooves12

Then there is also the issue that they SPECIFICALLY mention Mpeg as the storage medium... if they win this lawsuit Dish/DirecTV could change their compression algorithm to something else (say WMV or something different entirely) and successfully argue that it is different.

from the patent:

"A preferred embodiment of the invention accepts television (TV) input streams in a multitude of forms, for example, analog forms such as National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) or PAL broadcast, and digital forms such as..."

MPEG is listed as an example but the patent appears to include all digital signals.

HiDefGator · 10-21-2005, 10:20 PM

My issue with the patent (and I'm not a patent lawyer) is that it appears to cover everything from A to Z about the Tivo DVR. It dwells on how they manage the data internally, it covers the live buffer manipulation, compressing data, storing data, playing it back, cpu efficiency, etc. It's hard to tell from reading it just exactly what they were trying to patent.

To me the patent is like a shot gun approach, let's decribe everything and maybe some thing will stick.

I tried looking at it from the reverse point of view; what could I do with a dvr to not infringe on the patent. But once again I couldn't tell because the patent is all over the place.

If I designed a really dumb dvr that exactly emulated a vcr, no playback while recording, no wishlists, etc. it appears it would still be covered by the patent. But I don't see how anyone can patent the ability to record a video stream to a hard drive and play it back. That was done long before Tivo came along.

The Flush · 10-22-2005, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiDefGator

My issue with the patent (and I'm not a patent lawyer) is that it appears to cover everything from A to Z about the Tivo DVR. It dwells on how they manage the data internally, it covers the live buffer manipulation, compressing data, storing data, playing it back, cpu efficiency, etc. It's hard to tell from reading it just exactly what they were trying to patent.

To me the patent is like a shot gun approach, let's decribe everything and maybe some thing will stick.

I tried looking at it from the reverse point of view; what could I do with a dvr to not infringe on the patent. But once again I couldn't tell because the patent is all over the place.

If I designed a really dumb dvr that exactly emulated a vcr, no playback while recording, no wishlists, etc. it appears it would still be covered by the patent. But I don't see how anyone can patent the ability to record a video stream to a hard drive and play it back. That was done long before Tivo came along.

All good patents cover everything possible under the sun. This is done to prevent competitors from just tweaking one aspect of the patent to come up with a "new" invention. If nobody can create a dvr that does not infringe on the patent, they've done a great job of writing their patent.

goony · 03-20-2006, 10:33 PM

New topic with updated info.