Future of TIVO ?
 

Wes Newell wrote:

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:40:07 +0000, Douglas Johnson wrote:

Wes Newell wrote:

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:23:24 +0000, Douglas Johnson wrote:

They shouldn't have gotten a patent in the first place.

Why not? Which specific prior art teaches or makes obvious *all* of
the elements of the *exact* claims in the patent?

Because there was really nothing new about what they did. Everyone was
just waiting for large enough cheap HDD's to come out before doing it.
Their whole app is a joke.

Do you have specifics? If not, you're just blowing smoke. -- Doug

Specifics on what.

Specifics on what prior art invalidates their patent. Have you read and
understood the patent? Do you know what they claim to have invented? You're
still blowing smoke.

-- Doug

Future of TIVO ?
 

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:53:52 GMT, (Stephen Harris)
wrote:

Peter H. Coffin wrote:


On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:53:27 GMT, Stephen Harris wrote:
SVU wrote:

TiVo holds the patent on watching one channel while recording another.

I assume the patent is a little more complex than that, because VCRs have
allowed you do that for decades.

Not on a single device. VCR records one channel. While it's doing that,

And _now_ you're making it "a little more complex."

No, now you are starting to understand what was said. SVU, not Peter,
said just what Peter reiterated for you, but Peter spoke a little more
slowly so you could get it.

you can't use it to watch something else. You can only watch what it's
recording, or ignore it all together.

Actually, there were dual-deck VCR machines, some with independent
tuners for each deck. They weren't very cheap. My school had one in
the A/V department. So, again, the TiVo patent is presumably more
complex, yet.

[ I'm not saying TiVo don't have valid patents; I'm saying that what you
wrote is too simple. ]

Actually, you aren't saying much of anything at all, and reading even
less well.

Future of TIVO ?
 

On 2008-04-28, Mike Hunt wrote:
On 2008-04-28, JEDIDIAH wrote:
On 2008-04-27, Peter H. Coffin wrote:
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:53:27 GMT, Stephen Harris wrote:
SVU wrote:

TiVo holds the patent on watching one channel while recording another.

I assume the patent is a little more complex than that, because VCRs have
allowed you do that for decades.

Not on a single device. VCR records one channel. While it's doing that,
you can't use it to watch something else. You can only watch what it's
recording, or ignore it all together.

That's just a side effect of the recording medium. Magnetic disc
based devices have been able to handle multiple readers and writers
for decades.

True. So TiVo put together the idea and patented it. It could have just
as easily been someone else, if someone else had put together the idea and


Except it shouldn't have been anyone else either.

The classic patents are on things that no one else could figure
out or things that the entire planet was trying to develop for decades
before someone finally made it work.

patented it (or even, not patented it, to be used as prior art against
TiVo's patents).


The patent is narrow enough that there seem to be plenty of
ways to attack the problem with obvious methods that don't quite
conform to what's in the patent.


--


Some people have this nutty idea that in 1997 |||
reading to a hard disk and writing to a hard disk / | \
both at the same time was something worth patenting.


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Future of TIVO ?
 

Douglas Johnson shaped the electrons to say:
Specifics on what prior art invalidates their patent. Have you read and
understood the patent? Do you know what they claim to have invented? You're
still blowing smoke.

And the patent was challenged, reviewed, and upheld by the USPTO. No
one was able to show prior art that invalidates it.

-MZ
--
megazone-at-megazone.org http://www.MegaZone.org/ Gweep, Geek, Human, me.
http://www.GizmoLovers.com/ http://www.Eyrie-Productions.com/ -- Hail Eris
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-852-2171

Future of TIVO ?
 

"Douglas Johnson" wrote in message
...
Wes Newell wrote:

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:23:24 +0000, Douglas Johnson wrote:

They shouldn't have gotten a patent in the first place.

Why not? Which specific prior art teaches or makes obvious *all* of the
elements of the *exact* claims in the patent?

Because there was really nothing new about what they did. Everyone was
just waiting for large enough cheap HDD's to come out before doing it.
Their whole app is a joke.

Do you have specifics? If not, you're just blowing smoke.

Wes is a newgroup troll, and an idiot in general. Don't feed his insanity
by replying.

Future of TIVO ?
 

Wes Newell writes:

Specifics on what. Who was waiting? Me for one. I'd been wanting to record
to HDD since long before Tivo was even a dream. And I'm sure there must
have been thousands of other people. I think Tivo and Replay were the
first to actually build a working consumer box, but the idea for one has
been around for at least 10 years before that.

Actually, that is the point of a patent and show why the TiVo patent
is a good one. Patents are about successfully doing something that
"everyone" has wanted to do (but has not succeeded in doing) for
years. I believe this is called "reducing to practice". The first
person who actually succeeds in doing something gets the patent,
because they have shown that it is not only theoretically possible,
but also practically possible and that's what patents are rewards for.
Lots of people are good at hand-waving arguments that say something
should be possible, many fewer can actually execute and create that
possible thing.

Future of TIVO ?
 

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:06:00 -0400, Bill Kearney wrote:

Wes is a newgroup troll, and an idiot in general. Don't feed his
insanity by replying.

And you have the intelligence of a door knob. What else is new.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

Future of TIVO ?
 

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:14:38 -0400, Chris F Clark
wrote:

Wes Newell writes:

Specifics on what. Who was waiting? Me for one. I'd been wanting to record
to HDD since long before Tivo was even a dream. And I'm sure there must
have been thousands of other people. I think Tivo and Replay were the
first to actually build a working consumer box, but the idea for one has
been around for at least 10 years before that.

Actually, that is the point of a patent and show why the TiVo patent
is a good one. Patents are about successfully doing something that
"everyone" has wanted to do (but has not succeeded in doing) for
years. I believe this is called "reducing to practice". The first
person who actually succeeds in doing something gets the patent,
because they have shown that it is not only theoretically possible,
but also practically possible and that's what patents are rewards for.
Lots of people are good at hand-waving arguments that say something
should be possible, many fewer can actually execute and create that
possible thing.

Well, that's not entirely correct. One can't simply execute something,
it also has to be "new" in the sense that it was not described before.
An outstanding example is the geosynchronous orbiting satellites for
communication, an idea explained by Arthur c. Clarke years ago, thus
making it impossible for anyone to patent them (and he couldn't patent
them either, because at the time he came up with the idea, it was
impossible to actually produce one). IMO, the patent for Tivo might
well have been denied had the idea been known beforehand. The fact
that the patent was granted seems to indicate that the "Tivo idea" was
NOT generally known beforehand, at least not to the examiners in the
Patent Office.



--
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Future of TIVO ?
 

In article , Charlie
Hoffpauir wrote:

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:14:38 -0400, Chris F Clark
wrote:

Wes Newell writes:

Specifics on what. Who was waiting? Me for one. I'd been wanting to record
to HDD since long before Tivo was even a dream. And I'm sure there must
have been thousands of other people. I think Tivo and Replay were the
first to actually build a working consumer box, but the idea for one has
been around for at least 10 years before that.

Actually, that is the point of a patent and show why the TiVo patent
is a good one. Patents are about successfully doing something that
"everyone" has wanted to do (but has not succeeded in doing) for
years. I believe this is called "reducing to practice". The first
person who actually succeeds in doing something gets the patent,
because they have shown that it is not only theoretically possible,
but also practically possible and that's what patents are rewards for.
Lots of people are good at hand-waving arguments that say something
should be possible, many fewer can actually execute and create that
possible thing.

Well, that's not entirely correct. One can't simply execute something,
it also has to be "new" in the sense that it was not described before.
An outstanding example is the geosynchronous orbiting satellites for
communication, an idea explained by Arthur c. Clarke years ago, thus
making it impossible for anyone to patent them (and he couldn't patent
them either, because at the time he came up with the idea, it was
impossible to actually produce one). IMO, the patent for Tivo might
well have been denied had the idea been known beforehand. The fact
that the patent was granted seems to indicate that the "Tivo idea" was
NOT generally known beforehand, at least not to the examiners in the
Patent Office.


As to Clarke's idea, he didn't patent it because ideas can't be
patented. He said for years that he should have patented his idea,
apparently in the belief that such was possible. He finally learned
the truth of the matter and got over it, though.

The story about not being able to patent communications satellites
because Clarke had described them sounds very much like the urban
legend about how the submarine couldn't be patented because Jules Verne
had already described one so well. That one isn't true, either.

Future of TIVO ?
 

On 2008-04-29, MegaZone wrote:
Douglas Johnson shaped the electrons to say:
Specifics on what prior art invalidates their patent. Have you read and
understood the patent? Do you know what they claim to have invented? You're
still blowing smoke.

And the patent was challenged, reviewed, and upheld by the USPTO. No
one was able to show prior art that invalidates it.

Considering the notion that the original grant was in error this
doesn't really demonstrate anything. It also wouldn't be the only case
where clear prior art was ignored. Prior art has even been acknowledged
and then ignored.

--

Truth is irrelevant as long as the predictions are good. |||
/ | \

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