AT&T To Pay $215M To Settle TiVo Patent Suit

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
It looks like TiVo has won its patent dispute with AT&T. The settlement isn't as big as the $500M payday it got from Dish Network but $215 - $300M isn't chump change either.

AT&T Inc. will pay TiVo Inc. at least $215 million through June 2018, becoming the latest TV signal provider to settle a patent lawsuit involving the digital video recorder pioneer. AT&T could pay up to $300 million if subscriptions to its U-verse television package rise in line with AT&T forecasts, said TiVo spokesman Steve Wymer.
Click to expand...
 
Does Tivo have any other viable revenue sources besides lawsuits, or have they decided that all they have to do is sue everybody that can record tv shows and movies now?

Shit like this makes me hope they go under. They arew 100% patent trolls now as I don't think they have come up with anything unique since their first box. A company that stagnates doesnt last very long.
 
Hate TIVO, Hate pay for TV, love both there products hate there artificial pricing they seem to feel the need to mark up every single year.
 
rhouck said:
Yes, that is all the patent was for, hitting the record button. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It is a recorder.. that has a hard drive in it.

So what if you can set the times it records, what shows you want to record, search, etc.. and "pause live tv".. which it doesn't really do anyway.. it just keeps recording but not playing.

It is still just a fancy recording/playback device.
 
All they did was patent using a hard drive for what devices like VCRs used to do. Stupid. It's monopoly by patent.
 
cyclone3d said:
It is a recorder.. that has a hard drive in it.

So what if you can set the times it records, what shows you want to record, search, etc.. and "pause live tv".. which it doesn't really do anyway.. it just keeps recording but not playing.

It is still just a fancy recording/playback device.
Click to expand...

Which, IIRC, was being done well before TiVo was even in business using a PC and software. How was this patent allowed again?
 
EvilWays said:
Which, IIRC, was being done well before TiVo was even in business using a PC and software. How was this patent allowed again?
Click to expand...

Just another questionable patent being used to criple competition. Most of this was already being done by others before Tivo ever came along. You can look at the old Replay TV devices that had better tech than Tivo, but didn't the lawyers and marketing to compete with Tivo.
 
Hopefully Tivo will use the money to hire software engineer's so they can update their !$#!@#$!% boxes more than once in a lifetime.

Like, maybe fixing the absolutely dreadful flash-based HD user interface.
 
Patent trolling at its finest.

Reinforces my belief that Patents - while great tools to drive innovation in some cases - really don't belong in the tech world.

Once a technology becomes as mainstream as "using a hard drive to record live television" or "a method to use two fingers to interract with a touch screen" does, the patent should automatically dissolve.

Many year patents make sense in some cases, but in tech, where the product cycles are so short, - at the very least - the patents ought to be for much shorter periods of time. Maybe a year or two?

I was intrigued when Tivo first hit the market but the first thought I had was "well, that was self evident, how come this hasn't been done already".

IMHO, the patent system should be used to protect "ideas". It should be used to protect specific designs that have required much time and and expensive R&D activity.

Too many patents are hopelessly vague and try to protect a concept rather than an execution. IMHO Patents for concepts ought to be automatically denied.

Or even better, require companies to report their actual R&D spending when they apply for a patent. Link the spending to the number of years the patent is good for. No spending = no patent. Lots of spending = decades long patent.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038222664 said:
Patent trolling at its finest.

Reinforces my belief that Patents - while great tools to drive innovation in some cases - really don't belong in the tech world.

Once a technology becomes as mainstream as "using a hard drive to record live television" or "a method to use two fingers to interract with a touch screen" does, the patent should automatically dissolve.

Many year patents make sense in some cases, but in tech, where the product cycles are so short, - at the very least - the patents ought to be for much shorter periods of time. Maybe a year or two?

I was intrigued when Tivo first hit the market but the first thought I had was "well, that was self evident, how come this hasn't been done already".

IMHO, the patent system should be used to protect "ideas". It should be used to protect specific designs that have required much time and and expensive R&D activity.

Too many patents are hopelessly vague and try to protect a concept rather than an execution. IMHO Patents for concepts ought to be automatically denied.

Or even better, require companies to report their actual R&D spending when they apply for a patent. Link the spending to the number of years the patent is good for. No spending = no patent. Lots of spending = decades long patent.
Click to expand...

Go ahead and grant thme tech patents so that tech can move forward using profit as a driver, but limit them to 5 or 10 years before they expire that way you are left in the dust if you just sit on your ass like Tivo has.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top