You can't patent the idea of Kleenex, but you can patent a particular manufacturing process for Kleenex. You can't patent the idea of a device that cleans the floor, but you can patent the particular design for a vacuum cleaner. You can't patent the car, but you could have multiple patents relating to the design of an engine.
TiVo didn't patent the concept of a DVR. TiVo patented a process that made it practical to produce a responsive DVR with bare minimum amount of processing power. This allows DVRs to be produced with low-cost hardware. Prior to the TiVo, digital video recorders only existed for industrial and military use -- they cost tens of thousands of dollars. Those device implementations were patented, too.
Patents are only good for 20 years. Virtually every new technology people use is or was patented at some point. TiVo's "time warp" patent was issued in 1998 so it will expire in 2018.
As far as Dish Network, they do use the same chipset as the TiVo. The source code isn't the same, but from what the Court found, the source does the same thing with the chip. The interface isn't the same, and the features aren't all the same, but the core DVR functions -- such as simultaneous recording and playback -- work in the same way, infringing TiVo's "time warp" patent.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bkdtv @ Jun 3rd 2009 10:18PM
cypherx,
You can't patent an idea, only an implementation.
You can't patent the idea of Kleenex, but you can patent a particular manufacturing process for Kleenex. You can't patent the idea of a device that cleans the floor, but you can patent the particular design for a vacuum cleaner. You can't patent the car, but you could have multiple patents relating to the design of an engine.
TiVo didn't patent the concept of a DVR. TiVo patented a process that made it practical to produce a responsive DVR with bare minimum amount of processing power. This allows DVRs to be produced with low-cost hardware. Prior to the TiVo, digital video recorders only existed for industrial and military use -- they cost tens of thousands of dollars. Those device implementations were patented, too.
Patents are only good for 20 years. Virtually every new technology people use is or was patented at some point. TiVo's "time warp" patent was issued in 1998 so it will expire in 2018.
As far as Dish Network, they do use the same chipset as the TiVo. The source code isn't the same, but from what the Court found, the source does the same thing with the chip. The interface isn't the same, and the features aren't all the same, but the core DVR functions -- such as simultaneous recording and playback -- work in the same way, infringing TiVo's "time warp" patent.