Wow, that's interesting. I still find it hard to fathom as to why the U.S. Court System would allow such a high fine. In today's sue happy country, I guess that's to be expected. That makes me wonder about other products that have duplicate usage. Like does Puff's have to license technology to make tissues to Kleenex? Does Hoover pay royalties to Eureka (or whatever the very first electric vacuum cleaner was)? I mean they all do the same thing, just in a different way.
Now I could see if Dish Network took the exact same chipset as the Tivo, and threw very simular (although it would be different unless they had help from a tivo insider spy) code on it. To me it still doesn't have merit because the UI is vastly different, and Tivo items such as Wishlists, Season Pass, TivoToGo, etc.. do not exist, and if they would its under a different name and UI.
But then again, are all light bulb manufacturers paying royalties to GE (or whatever company took over Thomas Edison's invention)...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bkdtv @ Jun 3rd 2009 5:01PM
Another inaccuracy above -- this numbers above are based on assessed fees of $1.25/mo per infringing DVR, not $1.50/mo. Best not to post at 3am. :)
cypherx @ Jun 3rd 2009 8:50PM
Wow, that's interesting. I still find it hard to fathom as to why the U.S. Court System would allow such a high fine. In today's sue happy country, I guess that's to be expected. That makes me wonder about other products that have duplicate usage. Like does Puff's have to license technology to make tissues to Kleenex? Does Hoover pay royalties to Eureka (or whatever the very first electric vacuum cleaner was)? I mean they all do the same thing, just in a different way.
Now I could see if Dish Network took the exact same chipset as the Tivo, and threw very simular (although it would be different unless they had help from a tivo insider spy) code on it. To me it still doesn't have merit because the UI is vastly different, and Tivo items such as Wishlists, Season Pass, TivoToGo, etc.. do not exist, and if they would its under a different name and UI.
But then again, are all light bulb manufacturers paying royalties to GE (or whatever company took over Thomas Edison's invention)...
Just like playing devils advocate here :-)