Mailing List Archive

I probably wouldn't worry too much just yet. Many corporations get
these types of patents for defensive reasons, even when there is a ton
of prior art. Now, it would be darned hard to sue MS for using this
technology.

Now, if they start going sue happy...

The important thing would be to find any written descriptions or
examples of these types of systems that existed prior to October 26,
1998 (the filing date).

Some might argue that hotels that have been offering video on demand for
years via a room full of VCRs wired to the hotel rooms may constitute
prior art as far as the "Video-on-Demand" claim goes.

IF

In our last episode entitled '[mythtv-users] Is this gonna be a problem for Myth?', Justin Hunt wrote:
> http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm
>
> Microsoft jsut got a patent for something that sounds VERY similar to this
> project.
>
> anyone know if it will have an affect on it or not?

--
Isaac W. Foraker, Software Engineer
http://tazthecat.net/~isaac/
Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Hunt" <yell@rogers.com>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 5:28 PM
Subject: [mythtv-users] Is this gonna be a problem for Myth?


> http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm
>
> Microsoft jsut got a patent for something that sounds VERY similar to this
> project.
>
> anyone know if it will have an affect on it or not?

"However, patent rights aren't inviolable. If another company (either
through their defense of an infringement suit filed by Microsoft, or by
filing a suit of their own) can prove that the "inventions" claimed by
Microsoft have in fact been done before or are "obvious" to someone with
standard technical knowledge, then Microsoft's patent could be invalidated
by a court."

I think RealNetworks may have something to say about this patent. Just from
my casual reading of this, MythTV is meant to access pre-existing media
sources (cable/satellite/dvd/etc) and store them at the user's premises.
According to Fig 1. M$ has patented piping media from centralized offsite
sources into several customer homes. If M$ chooses to sue, in theory they'd
lose, but who could afford to fight them?

It might.. Although, based on TiVO's website (which I am assuming is
directly related to this patent in some way or another), they had the
concept ironed out in mid-97 (all I can get there is a flash-based
timeline with no landing pages), so if anyone wanted to dispute the
patent, it would have to be them.

Motorola might have a claim as well for the interactive program guide
portion of the patent.

Aaron

On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 15:01, Isaac F. wrote:
> I probably wouldn't worry too much just yet. Many corporations get
> these types of patents for defensive reasons, even when there is a ton
> of prior art. Now, it would be darned hard to sue MS for using this
> technology.
>
> Now, if they start going sue happy...
>
> The important thing would be to find any written descriptions or
> examples of these types of systems that existed prior to October 26,
> 1998 (the filing date).
>
> Some might argue that hotels that have been offering video on demand for
> years via a room full of VCRs wired to the hotel rooms may constitute
> prior art as far as the "Video-on-Demand" claim goes.
>
> IF
>
> In our last episode entitled '[mythtv-users] Is this gonna be a problem for Myth?', Justin Hunt wrote:
> > http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm
> >
> > Microsoft jsut got a patent for something that sounds VERY similar to this
> > project.
> >
> > anyone know if it will have an affect on it or not?
>
> --
> Isaac W. Foraker, Software Engineer
> http://tazthecat.net/~isaac/
> Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

> Van: Justin Hunt <yell@rogers.com>
>
> http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm
>
> Microsoft jsut got a patent for something that sounds VERY similar to
this
> project.
>
> anyone know if it will have an affect on it or not?

Here in Europe, no. In the USA, I don't know.

But I *think* that the judges can't sweep te evidence of an X * thousand
userbase who used MythTV before + source code in CVS + recordings from
before the patent was filed. But yeah, you never know, it's America...

Henk Poley <><

From: "Henk Poley" <hpoley@dds.nl>
> But I *think* that the judges can't sweep te evidence of an X * thousand
> userbase who used MythTV before + source code in CVS + recordings from
> before the patent was filed. But yeah, you never know, it's America...
>


Two things:
1) If the patent was just granted, the chances are it was filled quite a
while ago. Possible before mythtv got started.

2) But, really, this has nothing to do with MythTV. If you read the patent,
it talks about a server at a cable head-end that streams content over a
network to individual homes.

I don't think what mythtv is doing is anything like what Microsoft has
patented.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Justin Hunt
> Sent: 04 June 2003 22:28
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: [mythtv-users] Is this gonna be a problem for Myth?
>
>
> http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm
>
> Microsoft jsut got a patent for something that sounds VERY similar to this
> project.
>
> anyone know if it will have an affect on it or not?
>
> Justin

The US patent office is complete crap. This thing has "Prior Art" written
all over it.
This one is nearly 9 years ago: http://www.mediation.co.uk/lessons1.html

Robert Munro