Tech patents latest: Google, Cisco search pockets to sling $490m at TiVo Googorola and Cisco have settled their upcoming patent infringement trial with TiVo out of court, agreeing to pay the telly box firm $490m upfront. The patented technology in question covers the playing back of digital video that was recorded live, pausing said footage in the right place, and similar work; TiVo, a maker of …
The idea of a DVR was obvious. I was using a VCR in the late 80s/early 90s and wishing there was a way to record programs to hard drives so they'd have random access. I'm sure there were a million others who thought the same thing.
What Tivo invented were some of the little touches that are obvious only in hindsight, like how when you're fast forwarding quickly through commercials and hit 'play' to resuming watching after you see a bit of your program, it automatically backs up by an amount determined by how fast your were fast forwarding, so you don't need to back up every time like you did with VCRs.
Of course, the patent system being what it is, they probably do/did have a patent that covered every instance of recording broadcast video onto a hard drive.
"like how when you're fast forwarding quickly through commercials and hit 'play' to resuming watching after you see a bit of your program, it automatically backs up by an amount determined by how fast your were fast forwarding"
...and it's fucking annoying when you've got decent reactions and really, REALLY don't want some dumb box of trick to ALWAYS make the assumption that you are wrong and it is right. Maybe I could patent the option to switch that function off.
I've read about this for over a year and I still don't understand what TiVO patented. Was it being a DVR in a set top box? Was it being software that records video? Everything I seem to think of that is in a TiVO unit had already existed prior to TiVO. Is there a TiVO standards body somewhere or something similar to M.P.E.G.?
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