[mythtv-users] tivo patents cover mythtv?

[Brian Wood]

On Sunday 07 March 2010 03:49:07 pm Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
> On 7 March 2010 03:24, robert Larson <dewmanstl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > IMHO:
> >
> > I highly doubt it. I don't think the mythv developers ripped off code
> > from Tivo. They have better things to do.....
> 
> That's irrelevant when it comes to a patent ... You may or may not
> have copied the code; yet have infringed the patent.
> 
> The patent was lodged in 1998..
> 
> I have a double deck VCR letting me do just what Tivo claimed to have
> invented: can record while watching another program..
> 
> That device alone would be sufficient to make any appeal to the
> verdict successful as it is anterior to the "invention" date.
> 
> Stupid patents as usual...

Yeah, we had a setup that could do that back in the late 80s or early 90s at 
ABC, using a computer no less. Of course that 486 system could barely cope 
with postage-stamp sized videos, but it did do what TiVo claims a patent on. 

This was just a lab project, nothing official, so it might be hard to prove 
today.