[mythtv-users] tivo patents cover mythtv?

[Brian Wood]

On Saturday 06 March 2010 09:20:12 am Man Ak wrote:
>   BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
> }TIVO has won it's case against DISH's PVR:
> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/06/0343220/TiVo-Time-Warp-Judgment-Affi
> rmed?art_pos=4 [1]
>  The patent in question :
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6233389.html [2]
>  sure sound a lot like Mythtv, but. I'm no lawyer. Does this mean
> mythtv (and any other PVR) is threatened by this?

IMHO MythTV and pretty much all other Open Source projects are threatened by 
software patents in general.

There is so much prior art that I just can't believe a patent was granted to 
TiVo for this.

The real problem is that the USPTO gets paid for every patent application they 
"clear". Even though the USPTO is not technically a profit-oriented outfit, any 
such entity will want to garner as much funding as it possibly can, and thus 
will "clear" (grant) just about anything these days.

Most countries other than the USA have rejected the concept of software 
patents, and there is a good reason for this.