Dish Applies to Re-open Tivo case

[SKrueger]

Just came across this. Guess Charlie wants to keep the fight going.

Dish Network reopens TiVo patent dispute - Yahoo! News

 

[Greg Bimson]

This is simply the en banc request. The timeline as follows...

Get sued in District Court.
Lose the verdict.
Appeal the verdict to the Court of Appeals.
Appeal returned.
If appeal returned without having case completely overturned, reqeust all judges on the Court of Appeals rehear the appeal (this is the en banc request)

That is where we are. From this point, either:

Court of Appeals accepts the request, so the appeal will be reheard. This will add time, and is not necessarily a slam dunk that any point is winable. Could end up with entire case dismissed. Likelyhood about five percent.

Or

Court of Appeals rejects the request.

Echostar and Dish Network then can appeal to the Supreme Court to stay the injunction pending a writ of certiorari. Basically, that means the plaintiffs believe their appeal is strong enough to be overturned that they would ask the Supreme Court to step in.

If accepted, the injunction will be stayed until the bench votes to accept or reject the case. If rejected, the case will go back to the District Court, where the injunction would most likely take effect, unless the plaintiffs have some way they've fixed the infringement (which according to the plaintiffs is possible).

 

[navychop]

Thank you for the explanation.

I hope Dish wins. Even more, I hope Tivo loses. To me, it seems they are trying to win on legalisms and not innovation.

 

[darrencp22]

Maybe dish is trying to drag this along. Maybe Tivo will go under by the time this reaches a conclusion?

 

[Greg Bimson]

I hope Dish wins. Even more, I hope Tivo loses. To me, it seems they are trying to win on legalisms and not innovation.

Well, TiVo did approach Dish Network back in 1998 about partnering for a DVR. They left a prototype there. And it is believed in a court of law that somehow the Dish Network engineers reverse-engineered the prototype in order to make their version of a DVR.

So the question here is, how does that make Dish Network an innovator?

Maybe dish is trying to drag this along. Maybe Tivo will go under by the time this reaches a conclusion?

Of course.

My beliefs on how this will work:

Dish Network has submitted their en banc appeal. It will be denied within a month. Dish Network will ask the Supreme Court for an emergency stay while trying to file their writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court will also deny the appeal.

That puts the case back to the same court that issued the injunction sometime in May or June. That is when the fireworks will start. First to be addressed is the hardware claims that were sent back to the District Court to handle. May be a retrial, may be a summary judgment. Doesn't matter, because...

Dish Network will then claim they should no longer be subject to the injunction, because they no longer violate the injunction as the software now has a work-around. TiVo will state that doesn't matter, and until there is proof that the new software doesn't infringe, Dish Network/Echostar may still be infringing.

And that is the point where TiVo and Echostar will fight. I fully suspect this case will be settled by September.

 

[navychop]

Odd. I read your post, thinking this is going to be dragged out forever, and then you end with a September estimate. Got me!

The DVR is obvious. Too many patents are issued for too little new. If Dish stole code, line by line, or exactly copied an interface, fine. But it just seems like Replay and maybe even Dish itself have more claim than Tivo. But- I'm far from knowledgeable on this.

 

[Greg Bimson]

Well, we should know by the end of May what the District Court judge (Judge Folsom) is planning. At that point, we should have a idea how long the rest of the appeals chain should take.

The DVR is obvious. Too many patents are issued for too little new. If Dish stole code, line by line, or exactly copied an interface, fine.

Well, until the Court of Appeals ruled otherwise, the jury in the trial said that Dish Network practically copied the hardware implementation. However, because of the way the instructions to the jury were worded, the Court of Appeals set them aside, leaving only the software claims as infringing. It is possible the hardware claims will be re-addressed by the District Court. But what one needs to remember is that TiVo filed the claim on their implementation of recording one show while watching another pre-recorded show back in 1998, before the implementation of any of the other DVR's, and that patent withstood review, and in one case was reviewed twice.

 

[TheKrell]

But what one needs to remember is that TiVo filed the claim on their implementation of recording one show while watching another pre-recorded show back in 1998, before the implementation of any of the other DVR's, and that patent withstood review, and in one case was reviewed twice.

The mind boggles. We could do this with 2 VCRs for decades before that. What about their implementation was patentable? Doing it digitally? Doing it in one box rather than two?

 

[Greg Bimson]

Specifically, using one CPU and one dedicated chip to transfer I/O to a hard drive, which makes a one-box DVR less expensive. Remember, using 2 VCR's is not the same as doing this in a single, integrated box, with specific components. That is why most people in the older days wanted someone to build a "better mousetrap", as that would more than likely make the patent holder more money.

 

[TheKrell]

The mind still boggles. Sarcasm follows (not directed at you, Greg, but at the PTO).

I shall now patent "Space Warp" technology, where we combine 2 of anything into one box, while eliminating redundant components (and charging less). Never mind whether our combo product is any good. Never mind whether anybody wants to buy it. We don't need a good product; we don't even need profits! We'll just sue the living daylights out of anybody who tries to use our patented Space Warp technology. They stole our idea.

 

[Greg Bimson]

Remember, it is specific components and processes that make up a patent.

I realize some functions and rules of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) can occasionally be hard to swallow, but this isn't a new problem. For example, two people walked into the PTO and filed on the same day, for a similar invention to improve communications. And yet only Alexander Graham Bell was given a patent for the telephone. That patent was disputed by Elisha Gray for some time.

 

[Sammy033]

I shall now patent "Space Warp" technology, where we combine 2 of anything into one box, while eliminating redundant components (and charging less).

I thought the supreme court ruled a couple months ago that obvious combining of two things into one is not granted patent law protections in terms of preventing others from making other devices that do the same thing. Or, I think it had to do with whether or not the idea for such a thing existed elsewhere before someone made it.

Yes I know your post was sarcasm

 

[Greg Bimson]

I thought the supreme court ruled a couple months ago that obvious combining of two things into one is not granted patent law protections in terms of preventing others from making other devices that do the same thing.

You cannot take two patents and then patent that combination as a separate patent. This is as far from what the Time Warp patent is all about.