Techdirt. Stories about "tivo"

Cisco Has Enough Of TiVo Patent Claims, Files To Invalidate TiVo Patents

Mike Masnick — Mon, 4 Jun 2012 05:03:00 PDT

Over the past few years, as competition in the DVR market has become tougher, TiVo has become more and more reliant on using its patents to stop competition and innovation, rather than focusing on competing in the marketplace. its most famous case was the one against EchoStar, which even included TiVo buying a bull (literally) in Eastern Texas, where the district court case was heard. While it won at the district court level, during the appeals process, the Patent Office suddenly indicated that the patents might not be so solid. Not long after that, TiVo and EchoStar worked out a settlement.

TiVo found the process so enjoyable that it apparently started thinking about a second career as a patent troll -- and has already sued Verizon and Motorola. Not surprisingly, it's been pushing some others to license some patents... and at least one large player has had enough. Cisco, owners of Scientific Atlanta, a maker of settop boxes and DVRs, has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate four TiVo patents -- or, if the patents are found valid, a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe.

Of course, by filing first, Cisco was also able to file the case in San Jose, rather than letting TiVo try to get the case into Texas (despite the fact that both Cisco and Tivo are located not far from each other in Northern California). As far as I know, TiVo has not purchased a bull in San Jose.

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TV Network Execs Contemplate Going To Court To Say Skipping Commercials Is Illegal

Mike Masnick — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:56:00 PDT

Late last week Charlie Ergen and the folks at Dish Networks presented the TV networks with a bit of a conundrum. You see, the company decided to actually give consumers what they want: setting up a special DVR system, called Auto Hop, that would let viewers not just automatically DVR the entire primetime lineup of all the major networks with the single push of a button -- but also to automatically skip commercials when watching the playback, as long as it wasn't the same day the shows aired. This is something that consumers clearly want -- which Dish execs were pretty upfront about:

“Viewers love to skip commercials,” Vivek Khemka, vice president of DISH Product Management, said in a statement

But, of course, who is a consumer in this market gets complicated pretty fast. The TV networks, of course, make a fair bit of money from advertising on these shows, and they're not happy about any idea that means people might skip commercials. Those of you who have been around for a bit may recall a few relevant stories. First, there was Jamie Kellner, the former chair of Turner Broadcast Systems, who once claimed that walking away from your TV while commercials aired was a form of theft. Then, of course, there was the famous ReplayTV case. If you don't recall, ReplayTV was an early competitor to TiVo, and in many regards a better product. Among its features, it took an already considered legal feature from VCRs called "commercial skip" and added it to DVRs. The industry sued, in large part because of this feature, which they considered to be breaking the law.

Of course, the expense of the lawsuit resulted in Replay's parent company SonicBlue declaring bankruptcy. It then sold off the remains to D&M, who tried relaunching a version of the product without all the cool features people liked, and it went nowhere. Eventually, DirecTV bought the remnants. However, the basic lawsuit died out with the bankruptcy. A bunch of ReplayTV users, led by Craig Newmark from Craigslist, actually tried to continue the case on their own, to have those features declared legal, but after the networks promised not to sue those users for using the features, the judge tossed the case.

Left unresolved, of course, is whether or not features like commercial skip are actually legal.

As some are pointing out, the TV networks may have missed a golden opportunity by not continuing the fight against Craig and the other users, since they wouldn't be able to afford the bigtime lawyers that Ergen and Dish can easily toss out here. So the TV networks basically have to make the decision if this is really a battle worth fighting.

It does seem clear that the anti-consumer folks who run the TV networks would certainly like to slap Dish around for this move:

"I think this is an attack on our eco-system," said NBC Broadcasting chairman Ted Harbert on a conference call Monday. "I'm not for it."

Isn't it just like NBC to think that a tool that the public actually finds useful is an "attack" on their ecosystem? At some point, in the way, way distant future, perhaps we'll live in an age where companies like NBC Universal recognize that, when things are more efficient and easier for consumers, it is a good thing, rather than something to freak out about and declare evil?

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TiVo Apparently Considering Patent Trolling As A Second Act

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:41:41 PDT

It's been said that the only thing patents encourage is more patents, and you can argue that ridiculous valuations seen on patents these days, combined with the ability to monetize them without doing a damn thing, has more and more companies seeming to be considering if there's more value in just focusing on their patents. While the Motorola Mobility purchase by Google seems to have woken up the mainstream press to the problems of the patent system, for big companies, who haven't been doing much innovating lately, suddenly there's a temptation to focus more money on investing in their patents, rather than on investing in actual innovation. There's been a lot of speculation that Kodak is now focusing on auctioning off its patents, since the company believes they may be worth much more than the rest of the company. There are rumors of RIM selling its big patent portfolio as well.

And it's hitting other areas. TiVo, which has been involved in a few patent lawsuits, mentioned during its earnings call that it's paying close attention to the "evolution" of the "patent world," and that the company plans to "get the most out of this portfolio."

You have to wonder if the company still owns the bull that it bought in Marshall, Texas.

Either way, it really is a sad statement. All these companies (mostly once big companies who have failed to stay on top) now seem a lot more focused on "maximizing the value of our patent portfolio." You can understand why they want to do this in the short term, but it shows the screwed up incentives of the system. It's not the innovation that's valuable. It's the patents that usually have little to do with the actual innovation that have become valuable. So these companies start spending all their resources on patent issues, rather than actual innovation. It's the exact opposite of how the system is supposed to work.

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Guess That Bull In Texas Was A Good Investment: EchoStar Agrees To Pay TiVo To Settle Patent Case

Mike Masnick — Mon, 2 May 2011 13:56:42 PDT

TiVo and EchoStar have been in a ridiculously long patent dispute over DVR patents that began years ago. TiVo won nearly all of the early rounds, but the tide turned a bit last year, though it looked like TiVo was going to get something out of this. Of course, all of this was happening while the Patent Office itself was expressing doubt about the patents in question.

The case is now over, with EchoStar agreeing to pay TiVo $500 million (significantly more than the initial jury award). Of course, some will use this to suggest EchoStar should have just paid up early on, and from a financial perspective, they're probably correct. But, really, this once again shows the ridiculousness of the patent system. Many millions of dollars were wasted on this lawsuit, and then a final massive transfer payment is made. All of that money could have gone towards actually innovating and building better products. What a waste.

Of course, this also brings to a close one of the more bizarre side notes to this story. Back when the district court case was being tried in East Texas, TiVo paid $10,000 to buy an award-winning bull in Marshall, Texas... which it renamed TiVo. Pretty much everyone suggests this was a really cynical ploy to influence the jury. I'm curious what ever happened to the bull?

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TiVo's 'Big Win' Over Dish On Patents Looking Less And Less Solid, As Patent Office Rejects Patent Claims

Mike Masnick — Tue, 8 Jun 2010 21:05:20 PDT

Early on TiVo had won pretty much of all of its patent battles with EchoStar over its DVR technology, perhaps helped along by a bit of bull buying in Texas. We had noted, however, that the USPTO had expressed concerns over the validity of the patents, and we wondered why the court case would move forward while the patents themselves might be rejected by the Patent Office. But, the case did go forward, and while TiVo initially won at the appeals court level (which made it so happy that it sued others and demanded ridiculous sums from EchoStar), things haven't been looking quite so good lately.

Last month, the appeals court vacated the earlier decision, and agreed to rehear the case. And, now, it turns out that the USPTO has rejected two patent claims that were a key part of this fight. Of course, as TiVo is quick to point out, this isn't the end of the review process, but it certainly raises serious questions about the validity of the patents TiVo is basing its whole strategy on.

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On Second Thought... Appeals Court Vacates TiVo's Big Patent Win Over Echostar

Mike Masnick — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:46:21 PDT

TiVo's lawsuit against EchoStar for patent infringement has been a mostly one-sided affair. TiVo appeared to win at every turn, to the point that there were stories suggesting EchoStar would have to start blocking the use of its own DVR. TiVo had celebrated these victories by suing others as well, and demanding ridiculous sums of money from EchoStar. Of course, it seemed odd to us that, while all of this was happening, the US Patent Office was admitting the patents might not be valid. Oops.

Today, however, TiVo got some bad news. Despite initially siding with TiVo, the Federal Circuit has vacated the win, and agreed to rehear the case. Perhaps TiVo needs to buy some local livestock in DC, like it did in East Texas...

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Verizon Figures If It's Already Involved In A Patent Lawsuit With TiVo, Why Not Sue Cablevision For Its DVR Too

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:05:34 PDT

Ah, the patent wars. As you're probably aware, TiVo spent years fighting a big legal battle with EchoStar/Dish Networks over some patents on DVR technology. TiVo won big, and then immediately turned its patent lawyers on some other companies including Verizon. In Verizon's response to TiVo's lawsuit, it went nuclear back, accusing TiVo of violating Verizon's patents on DVR technology -- including a patent that the world's biggest patent hoarding firm, Intellectual Ventures, gave Verizon for the purpose of being used against TiVo.

So is it any surprise to hear via Broadband Reports that Verizon is now suing Cablevision, claiming patent infringement on its set top box/DVR offerings as well? Cablevision and Verizon have had a really nasty battle going for years on Long Island, with all sorts of dirty tricks being played by both sides. But patent infringement? Given the odd timing of this lawsuit coming so quickly on the heels of the counterclaims against TiVo, you have to wonder if Verizon "woke up" to the fact that it could use these patents against Cablevision, only after provoked by TiVo.

Indeed, if you look down the list of patents in the Verizon Cablevision spat, you'll see that there's some overlap with those found in the TiVo suit:

5,666,293: Downloading operating system software through a broadcast channel
5,635,979: Dynamically programmable digital entertainment terminal using downloaded software to control broadband data operations
5,608,447: Full service network
6,367,078: Electronic program-guide system with sideways-surfing capability

7,561,214: Two-dimensional navigation of multiplexed channels in a digital video distribution system

6,055,077: Multimedia distribution system using fiber optic lines
5,864,415: Fiber optic network with wavelength-division-multiplexed transmission to customer premises
6,381,748: Apparatus and methods for network access using a set-top box and television

The three in bold are found in both lawsuits. Now, to be fair, before looking at the details, I was guessing that Verizon would also be using the patent it got from IV, but that patent (5,410,344) appears to be the one patent that Verizon is asserting against TiVo, but not against Cablevision. I have no idea if this is because nothing Cablevision does is covered by that patent, or if Verizon has limitations on what it can do with the IV patent. Still, given the overlap here, the timing, and the fact that many of these patents are pretty old, you really have to wonder if the lawsuit from TiVo and the scouring of patents for a countersuit also gave Verizon the idea to sue its arch-nemesis in the Long Island market over the same issues.

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Intellectual Ventures Lending Its Patents To Members To Sue Others

Mike Masnick — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 07:49:00 PST

We've certainly written plenty about Intellectual Ventures, the giant, incredibly secretive, patent hoarding operation that has convinced a bunch of companies to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a sort of pyramid scheme protection racket, to avoid getting sued on any of the patents that it holds. But now it's taken things a step further. Last year, we saw how at least one IV patent had shown up in a patent lawsuit, and now Zusha Elinson is reporting that Intellectual Ventures has effectively loaned out one of its patents to member company Verizon, with which it can sue TiVo, in response to a lawsuit TiVo filed against it.

Yes, effectively, Intellectual Ventures is becoming an arms dealer in patent nuclear war.

Think about this for a second. TiVo sued Verizon over patents. Traditionally in patent lawsuits between two big tech companies, the sued party then finds some of its own patents that the other company is infringing on and then counter-sues. But, in this case, apparently Verizon couldn't find anything good, and IV dug through its own portfolio and transferred the rights over to Verizon so Verizon could pound back on TiVo. This must be what Verizon paid Intellectual Ventures $350 million for. The right to get handed patents that it has no intention of using or implementing, but over which it can sue others. I don't think this is what Thomas Jefferson envisioned when he set up the patent system.

Amusingly, Intellectual Ventures tries to position this all as a good thing:

Don Merino, vice president of licensing at IV, said it's an example of IV taking "a much more customer-centric approach."

"We want to figure out how to get out of the, 'I win, you lose' to a much more collaborative, 'We both win,'" said Merino.

Well, sure. Unless you're TiVo. Or the general public who would prefer that these hundreds of millions of dollars getting tossed around went towards actual innovation instead of lawsuits.

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Suing For Patent Infringement No Replacement For Actually Building A Real Business

Mike Masnick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:57:00 PST

TiVo has been spending a lot of effort suing others for patent infringement, but apparently not very much on actually improving their own services and giving customers a reason to buy them over the competition. So while it may be winning some of its patent lawsuits, it hasn't helped much for the business, which is rapidly bleeding customers and losing marketshare. TiVo basically created this market and owned it for years -- but then got complacent. Now, since it can't compete, it's gone to a litigation strategy. Perhaps it should have focused more on providing value and competing rather than suing.

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Fresh Off Victory Over Dish, TiVo Sues AT&T, Verizon

Mike Masnick — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:22:18 PDT

Why bother competing in the market when you can just sue everyone else? That appears to be TiVo's big strategy these days. Just a month after winning a big court victory over EchoStar/Dish over a patent that the USPTO is not really sure it should have issued, TiVo has moved on to sue both AT&T and Verizon in a nearly identical lawsuit. And, of course, you know exactly how the negotiations on this one start. TiVo will point to the headlines about the millions the the court has told Dish to pay. Whatever happened to the good old days when companies competed in the marketplace rather than in court? TiVo is a great and innovative product, no doubt. While not really the first such product, it did a great job convincing the market of the value of DVRs. But then others innovated as well, sometimes making their product even better. That's called competition and it should drive everyone to make better products. It appears TiVo would rather that the competitors be kept out of the market, rather than bothering to innovate in the market.

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Remind Me: Why Do We Let Patent Lawsuits Go On Even As USPTO Has Doubts About The Patents?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 18:28:48 PDT

While plenty of people are familiar with the fact that NTP got $612.5 million from RIM in a patent dispute a few years back (which drew tremendous scrutiny into the realm of patents), one of the most interesting details that many people didn't follow was that at the same time as the lawsuit was going on, the US Patent Office was re-examining those same patents, and issuing rejections of the very same patents. Despite the USPTO even rushing to announce its problems with the patents way ahead of schedule, the judge chose not to wait for the final rejections and pressured RIM into paying up.

This sort of thing happens all the time.

For example, just weeks after TiVo was practically dancing in the streets over its latest wins over EchoStar in a patent dispute over basic DVR functionality, the USPTO has given an initial rejection on some of the claims at issue in the case. While TiVo is quick to downplay this as just the first step in a long process (which it gets to respond to), it's being a bit misleading in suggesting that this sort of thing happens all the time. Sure -- it happens a lot, but to questionable patents. It seems that, if the USPTO has agreed to review a patent and clearly the examiners have serous questions about the patentability of certain claims, shouldn't any lawsuits that hinge on those patents be put on hold?

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TiVo Goes Dr. Evil On EchoStar: One BILL-ion Dollars, Please

Mike Masnick — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:33:00 PDT

TiVo and EchoStar (DISH) have been involved in a long and convoluted patent battle over basic DVR functionality. TiVo's certainly been winning. Personally, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous to me. The market is better served by competition, and having multiple players focusing on providing better DVR functionality (and, trust me, having used both their DVRs, they could both stand for some significant improvements) rather than spending money on lawyers. Either way, TiVo seems to be shooting for the moon with its latest demand that Dish pay up $1 billion dollars (Dr. Evil laughter inserted here), which is a lot more than the hundreds of millions most folks expected. One doubts they'll actually get that much -- the number is probably more of an effort to get EchoStar to just settle. But, if they do get numbers like that, you have to admit that buying that cow in Texas was a great investment.

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TiVo Bought Some Bull In Marshall, Texas (Literally)

Mike Masnick — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:29:00 PDT

For years we've discussed how patent holders love to file infringement lawsuits in Marshall, Texas. There are a variety of reasons for this, but a big part of it is that the court and the juries there seem extra sympathetic to patent holders. However, when TiVo took Dish Network to court in Marshall, apparently it wanted a little extra something to help push it over the edge. So it bought some bull. Literally.

Two weeks before the jury handed TiVo a $74 million award, the company apparently "paid the record-breaking sum of $10,000" for a "Grand Champion Steer" right in Marshall, Texas. Oh, and they renamed it TiVo. TiVo's lawyers insist it had absolutely nothing to do with winning the case, but, still... why buy the bull? Apparently Samsung -- no stranger to patent litigation -- is also getting involved in "civic" causes in Marshall. There's a local celebratory event called "Stagecoach Days" in Marshall that has recently been (wait for it...) renamed as Samsung Stagecoach Days. Of course, apparently one jury consultant warns that this kind of thing can backfire:

"Buying a cow like that I think is bullshit. I think it's insulting -- the idea that people are so simple that something like that will influence the case."

Well, somebody bought the bull...

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Blockbuster Takes Its PPV Streaming Movies To TiVo

Carlo Longino — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:30:00 PDT

Blockbuster announced back in November that it would begin offering pay-per-view movie downloads, but its plan had a couple of major pitfalls: it required consumers to buy a proprietary box to be able to buy the downloads, and it didn't offer a very wide selection. It's cracked one of those, sort of, by making its OnDemand service available to TiVo users, who will now be able to access it alongside rival services from Netflix and CinemaNow. It's heartening to see that Blockbuster has realized the standalone box strategy isn't viable, even if others haven't figured it out. The lesson is pretty clear: if you're going to come out with a streaming service, you're going to fail if you force users to buy a proprietary box, and your only chance to succeed is by making it available on as many platforms as possible. That's not a guarantee, mind you, as there are still plenty of ways to screw things up, or to have things screwed up for you by movie studios.

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Google's Ad Success Has Lessons For Television

Timothy Lee — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:37:18 PDT

Patri Friedman points to a fascinating post by a Yahoo employee (speaking only for himself) speculating on the reasons Google is clobbering Yahoo in the search ad market. In a nutshell, Google was a lot quicker to figure out the benefits of ranking ads by ad quality rather than simply auctioning off the top slot to the highest bidder. Given that online advertisers pay on a per-click basis, more relevant and useful ads can generate more clicks -- and therefore more revenue -- than lower-quality ads. Because ads with higher click-through rates became more highly ranked, advertisers began to compete on relevance as well as price. They began to optimize their ads to generate higher click-through rates. The average quality of ads on Google began to improve. And here's the really important point: as the quality of Google ads got better, users started to discover that Google ads were actually useful and relevant, and they got in the habit of looking at them. This is an example of a principle Techdirt has been emphasizing for years: ads are content, and they're a lot more effective if they contain information people actually want. Google's experience belies the conventional view that ads are a necessary evil users have to put up with as the cost of getting the content they want.

Nowhere is that conventional view of advertising more entrenched than in the television industry, which is constantly wringing its hands (and filing lawsuits) over the detrimental impact of devices like the TiVo and Replay TV that include ad-skipping technology. I think the Google example demonstrates how short-sighted that attitude is. With a little ingenuity, TV networks could be using devices like TiVo the same way Google uses click-through statistics: as a way to gather data on user attitudes toward different ads. If networks priced ad inventory the same way Google does, giving a discount to advertisers whose ads had lower skip rates, advertisers would respond by trying to make more entertaining and relevant ads. And as ads became more entertaining and useful, viewers would be less likely to pick up the remote and push the "30-second skip" button.

Even more radical, the networks could be using TiVo-like devices to distribute shows and ads directly over the Internet. In that case, the device could display a different set of ads to each viewer, with the ads chosen based on the individual viewer's show-watching and ad-skipping history as well as some basic demographic characteristics. For example, users who frequently skip car ads would be shown fewer car ads. Viewers under 40 would never be shown ads for adult diapers, and all-male households would never be shown ads for feminine hygiene products. Such a system would be a win-win for both advertisers and viewers: viewers would find ads more useful and less irritating, while advertisers would be willing to pay higher rates for ads that were precisely targeted at relevant subgroups. And that would solve the "TiVo problem" once and for all: not by forcing users to watch ads they'd rather avoid, but by finding ways to show users ads they actually find entertaining and useful.

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