TIVO GRANTED EIGHT NEW DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN PATENTS The
United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued new patents to TiVo covering important aspects of DVR software and hardware design.
What can I say but Aaaaaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!!!!
What was that Clash song again? "I'm so bored with the U.S.A."...
Well, thanks to the EU commission that has repeatedly ignored the EP decisions, we're going the same route.
And again if open source communities have made such features and published them before the date Tivo applied for patent, that is the easy way of removing the patent.
USPTO doesn't check google for that stuff.. :-) They take money from companies by allowing them to patent things, and decide later if that patent was a valid one.
BR, Jori
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com wrote:
TIVO GRANTED EIGHT NEW DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN PATENTS The
United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued new patents to TiVo covering important aspects of DVR software and hardware design.
What can I say but Aaaaaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!!!!
What was that Clash song again? "I'm so bored with the U.S.A."...
Well, thanks to the EU commission that has repeatedly ignored the EP decisions, we're going the same route.
And again if open source communities have made such features and published them before the date Tivo applied for patent, that is the easy way of removing the patent.
"Easy" if you have enough time and money. Most small and medium sized businesses (not to speak of open source developers) simply don't have the resources to have a patent overturned, so it would be better to simply disallow software patents in the first place. That's what the European Parliament has repeatedly asked. And what the European Commission has repeatedly ignored.
Bye
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com 04.03.05 11:15
USPTO doesn't check google for that stuff.. :-) They take money from companies by allowing them to patent things, and decide later if that patent was a valid one.
That's the problem! If USPTO grants a patent, they get much more money than as if they would discard it! (*) Those brain dead child like US "patents" would disapper immediately if every attempt to apply for a patent would cost the same money regardles if grabted or not. But that's not wanted because there are so many attorneys who are living from that silly US-"patents".
Too it looks better if america can "claim" "We are not only killing the most innocents in the world for oil, we too the have the best inventors in the world! See how many patents we made last year!".
Even if the patent is worth nothing because of "prior art" they can block competitions and bound there force to fight for cancelation of a that patent. See how long the company which is now calling itself "SCO" can live and "prosper" only by claiming(!) linux clains stolen code...
(*) If you want(ed) to file a german patent you will do/would have done a lot of -expensive- preinvestigation to be sure not to try to patent something trivial or already known, because you have to pay the patent office regardless if the patent is granted or not! But the EU want make that american crap too because teh big companies what t that way and "spent" a lot of money. See http://swpat.ffii.org etc. (english)
To get an impression how patent licences (alrady) are "negotiated", have a look at http://www.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/usenet/Fachbegriffe.der.Informatik.html "#367: Patentverhandlungen" (Sorry, only in german.) That's not "only a joke", that will become reality! See all those cheap childish US "patents". Who will tell what they are worth, if they are worth something at all? So printing them out will give an impression which patents may cause the bigger costs for the patent attorneys of the counter part...! (That's the idea behind #376).
Rainer Zocholl wrote:
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com 04.03.05 11:15
USPTO doesn't check google for that stuff.. :-) They take money from companies by allowing them to patent things, and decide later if that patent was a valid one.
That's the problem! If USPTO grants a patent, they get much more money than as if they would discard it! (*)
I think that other main problem, is much more often the culprit.
It is much more paperwork to reject a patent than to grant it. You have to reason why you can't grant a patent, but "OK, granted" is more or less enough in the other case.
And as the USPTO employee isn't "responsible/liable" for what he/she did, granting is much more "smooth sailing", than the "stressfull" rejection. :-(
Bis denn
Too it looks better if america can "claim" "We are not only killing the most innocents in the world for oil, we too the have the best inventors in the world! See how many patents we made last year!".
Please stop this on this list. Nothing to do with VDR (original discussion on TiVO patents had).
Olivier.
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jori.hamalainen＠teliasonera.com -
Luca Olivetti -
Matthias Schniedermeyer -
Olivier Jacques -
Rainer Zocholl