# TiVo Granted Season Pass Patent



## Draconis (Mar 16, 2007)

Over ten years after it was filed, the US patent office has finally granted TiVo's patent on a "season pass".

I can see a LOT of lawsuits from TiVo in the future. :nono2:

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-02/tivo-granted-season-pass-patent/


----------



## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I would think the people at DIRECTV who negotiated the patent-sharing agreements are high-fiving each other right now.


----------



## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I would think the people at DIRECTV who negotiated the patent-sharing agreements are high-fiving each other right now.


Exactly what I was thinking after reading about this earlier...

~Alan


----------



## Draconis (Mar 16, 2007)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I would think the people at DIRECTV who negotiated the patent-sharing agreements are high-fiving each other right now.


Agreed.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Who's John Steward?


----------



## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I would think the people at DIRECTV who negotiated the patent-sharing agreements are high-fiving each other right now.


And the people at E* are freaking out!


----------



## lovswr (Jan 13, 2004)

No matter what the legal ramifications may be, all of us should lament the fact that the U. S. Patent Office would let tripe like this pass. Contrary to current usage, the Founding Fathers thought that the main purpose of any patent was to be, *non-obvious & useful... *. Now recording the same television program on a hard drive (that's how they get around previous VCR usage) could be sincerely argued as being useful. However this is painfully obvious 

This will not end. I have a friend who used to joke that somehow in the future we would have to pay to wear yellow socks on Tuesdays. It is coming :nono2:


----------



## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Without access to the patent and a few dozen hours with an attorney, I have to say... maybe it isn't obvious. One thing that a lot of companies learned quite painfully is that building a DVR isn't as easy as you think.


----------



## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

The way I see it, the design and building of the DVR may quite complex and thusly deserving of a patent, but the "idea" of a DVR shouldn't be. It's just too obvious and common.


----------



## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

rudeney said:


> The way I see it, the design and building of the DVR may quite complex and thusly deserving of a patent, but the "idea" of a DVR shouldn't be. It's just too obvious and common.


Welcome to patent law. Where patent lawyers would try and patent the very sun light we live by if they could :lol:


----------



## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

I have to say, it was probably not as obvious 10 plus years ago when they actually applied for the patent. Though I will have to say that as soon as I got my Videoguide setup in 1996, I immediately thought how neat it would be and the sucess it would have if it had a hard drive instead of controlling a VCR. IIRC, it could record each airing of a show also, but I am sure the logic was not the same as TiVo uses.


----------



## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

For a person who has never seen or used a TiVo box, the logic of a Season Pass may not seem like a big deal. A person who has a Scientific Atlanta DVR with one of the cable providers would drool over what the season pass does:
You can record every instance of a program on a specific channel or only the new episodes. You can cause the recording to start a bit early or extend it up to three hours. You can specify how long to keep a show, and how many to keep. The whole concept is unique, non obvious and useful. Being that TiVo conceived of it in its infancy made it essential for them to patent the concept. The Season Pass sets TiVo apart from other DVR's.


----------



## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

To me, this would be like patenting the ability to search for shows in the guide. Maybe D*'s "smart search" technology is worthy of a patent because it goes beyond the average person's conception of a search, but just a plain old text string search, no. So, If TiVo has some sort of special logic that can do more than just record every episode of a series, then that process deserves a patent, but otherwise, if I were on the jury, then they'd lose.


----------



## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

rudeney said:


> If TiVo has some sort of special logic that can do more than just record every episode of a series, then that process deserves a patent, but otherwise, if I were on the jury, then they'd lose.


See my last post: You can select all episodes or only new episodes (based on Tribune Media's flags). You can have recordings automatically extended beyond their normal end time from 1 minute to three hours. And, since it uses the Tribune Media flags, when an episode gets rescheduled (down here, Criminal Minds and CSI New York) often get delayed due to college basketball: Tarheel country, you know! ), it still gets recorded. You can also set up season passes based on "wishlists" - I could set up a season pass for all LA Lakers games, regardless of what channel they're on. 
So, yes, it does have special logic. (OK, so I'm a TiVo Fanboy - I have four of them! :grin: )


----------

