The two patents seem to cover playback and FF and FR and storage/retrieval to/from a HDD. E* must have spent a fortune crawling through patents. If E* prevails, Tivo is going to have a lot of company in their market. It's never been clear to me with the existence of the Replay patents how Tivo was able to prevail in the first place.
DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding TiVo & NFL. Go Legal Team!
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Not so fast E*
This is TIVO's take on the same ruling.
NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp (DISH.O) and EchoStar Corp (SATS.O) on Tuesday welcomed the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's decision to reexamine a patent infringement claim involving TiVo's (TIVO.O) software.
But TiVo countered that the USPTO action was routine and that it believed ultimately the office would rule in favor of its Time Warp patent.
The companies have been wrangling for years over TiVo's Time Warp software that allows users to record one television program while watching another via a digital video recorder.
"The PTO found that there is a 'substantial new question' of patentability as to the software claims in light of prior patents that appear to render TiVo's '389 patent invalid," Dish, formerly known as EchoStar Communications Corp, said in a statement.
TiVo later released a statement saying the USPTO conducted a prior re-examination of the Time Warp patent at EchoStar's request, which concluded last November with the USPTO issuing a re-examination certificate.
"The USPTO grants most patent re-examination requests," TiVo said. "Contrary to EchoStar's statement, the USPTO made no substantive findings.
"We are confident that the USPTO will once again confirm the validity of all of the claims of the Time Warp patent." (Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
This is TIVO's take on the same ruling.
NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp (DISH.O) and EchoStar Corp (SATS.O) on Tuesday welcomed the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's decision to reexamine a patent infringement claim involving TiVo's (TIVO.O) software.
But TiVo countered that the USPTO action was routine and that it believed ultimately the office would rule in favor of its Time Warp patent.
The companies have been wrangling for years over TiVo's Time Warp software that allows users to record one television program while watching another via a digital video recorder.
"The PTO found that there is a 'substantial new question' of patentability as to the software claims in light of prior patents that appear to render TiVo's '389 patent invalid," Dish, formerly known as EchoStar Communications Corp, said in a statement.
TiVo later released a statement saying the USPTO conducted a prior re-examination of the Time Warp patent at EchoStar's request, which concluded last November with the USPTO issuing a re-examination certificate.
"The USPTO grants most patent re-examination requests," TiVo said. "Contrary to EchoStar's statement, the USPTO made no substantive findings.
"We are confident that the USPTO will once again confirm the validity of all of the claims of the Time Warp patent." (Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Interesting stuff going on here. The strategy regarding Charlie's statement at the CES indicating his willingness to make the new 922 available to competitors including Direct may be becoming a bit clearer now. This could be a strategy to effectively put TIVO out of business.
No, the previous court judgment was final and unappealable after the US Supreme Court refused to review E*'s appeal.
But if the TiVo's claims 31 and 61 are invalidated two months from now, E* should be free of additional harrassment from TiVo. And of course TiVo will have nothing to live on, well almost.
But couldn't Dish sue Tivo to get the money back? I wouldn't be surprised if they did. And if Dish won, might they not also be entitled to additional payments, like court costs, lawyer fees, etc.
Ah yes...its off to the races.
The only place left for you to continue to be off the topic?
The only place left for you to continue to be off the topic?
Lol...not at all...
...All I need to do is sit back and play the fiddle.
Lol...not at all...
...All I need to do is sit back and play the fiddle.
Then why the urge to show off in front of the maestro now?
Both of the prior art references were presented by E* during the last reexamination, only that the USPTO failed to consider them two together, despite of E*'s request to do so.
Even if Tivo's patent in question here was ruled to be unenforceable, that doesn't mean that Tivo could not go on as a company. There are still a lot of people out there that would not give up their Tivo for anything, and a Tivo is the service as much as it is the hardware. They will just have to do a better job of marketing themselves, given the large (and growing) number of choices out there for DVRs and related services.
TiVo had lost about 33% of its total subs (though most of them D* accounts) since 2007, and is projected to lose more, especially now the digital convertion will render many of their own OTA boxes useless. TiVo's CEO admitted when most of those folks switch from OTA to cable/Fios/Uverse/DBS to beat the deadline, they are likely to just take those no upfront cost DVRs offered by the TV providers, rather go out to buy another digital ready TiVo standalone DVR.
TiVo has however been busy on other fronts, mainly content streaming and such, but in this area they have no patent to give them a leg up against the large field of similar competitors who actually own content for delivery.
To be honest at first I use to love the NFL Network but as of late I have really despised it. So if Charlie does pull the plug I will not be bothered one bit for many reasons. If you ask me the NFL has become too greedy. Now eight games a year can only be seen if a person buys into a higher cable or satellite package. I hate the fact that the NFL has got so greedy that they have things like NFL Sunday Ticket and the Monday Night games on ESPN. I miss the days of good ole NFL on regular tv Networks. Not to mentioin that the NFL Network does the most biased job of covering football games. So if Charlie pulls the plug I could care less for I wish the NFL would go back to the days of Saturday December games on networks that people could watch for free compared to a subscription type network that one needs to spend more money to watch. Not to mention that in my opinion the NFL network gave dish a screw job when they aired the Giants VS Patriots regular season game on all networks. That was a game only to be aired on the NFL network which at that time Dish had on their lowest package. If you ask me I think that game is when things started to heat up between Dish and the NFL Network. This is coming from a big time NFL fan.
I don't know about that...TiVo is banking their future on patents here, and they've not done very much to improve their product other than claim to have invented it.
Without a patent in their corner, the are pretty much done...and Dish undoubtedly knows this...
As far as Dish is concerned, this is either a scare tactic to get TiVo to back off, an attempt to drag this drama out further ad nauseum, or a legitimate attempt to stick a fork in TiVo and eliminate a thorn thats been in thier side for years now. Who knows...
But I know one thing, this will not end well either way...
