Comments on: TiVo Awarded Patent For Closed Captions On A DVR

By: Davis

Davis — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:41:55 +0000

What the patent covers may be different or could be the same, but in the filing TiVo includes a screenshot of the tagging system that they currently use as part of the application.

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:06:00 +0000

Paul, Actually this doesn’t sound like the VBI tagging used for the promos. Instead of inserting TiVo-specific content into line 21, this patent refers to using data that is already there – CC & ETV – and hashing that data to produce a unique signature. So you’d be able to mark sections of *any* program, without needing to insert the flag ahead of time. So this does seem to be different from TiVo’s own prior art. I think Davis was in error when he referred to the promo system in the TiVo today – as that uses the Line 21 tagging and not this hashing system.

By: Paul Mace

Paul Mace — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:04:28 +0000

And my issue is not that Kevin, Paul or Jim are listed, but that I was not. Without me, the principle claims of the invention would not exist. Unless you are arguing that they have tried to get around their own prior art.

By: Paul Mace

Paul Mace — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 17:48:53 +0000

The problem with making TiVo interactive was embedding meta-data in a broadcast video stream without having it stripped by broadcasters and MSOs. My insight was that line 21 is always passed through and TiVo could use the blank unused portion of closed caption to embed discrete tagged sequences of characters that Tivo could intercept and act upon them. Kevin et. al. wrote the code that implemented this and we started ‘tagging’ NBC promos in 2000. You see this in commercials when “Thumbs Up” suddenly appears, prompting you to record the show or get more info. Before I drew it all out on Barton’s white board it was regarded as impossible.

By: Paul Mace

Paul Mace — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 17:35:15 +0000

I think you are naive about TiVo, patents and how inventions happen.

By: Davis

Davis — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:44:06 +0000

Not unless you count beta testing.

By: Todd

Todd — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:15:31 +0000

Davis, did you ever work at TiVo?

By: Davis

Davis — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:18:34 +0000

Hi Paul, thanks for sharing things from your perspective, but while I’ve no doubt that your work added to the TiVo experience, I think it’s a pretty bold statement to claim that you singlehandedly invented the technology listed in this patent, especially when TiVo filed the application six years after you left the company. Certainly some of your work at TiVo created a foundation for what is claimed, but very few technologies are created in a bubble and to ignore the contribution that other members of the TiVo team made to this patent (and the underlying technology that I hope we’ll see in use one day) devaulues the work that others did alongside of you. I can understand if you would feel sleighted if your contribution was ignored, but certainly you can acknowledge that many other people helped make TiVo what it is today? While I wasn’t there to know who invented what, I think that to credit this patent to anyone other than TiVo is unfair to all of the employees who do show up day after day so that they can make television better for the rest of us.

By: Paul Mace

Paul Mace — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:14:31 +0000

he problem is none of the people on the patent actually invented what is claimed. I did. When everyone thought this was impossible, I explained in detail to Barton, the CTO, how to do it. He actually got energized enough to start coming to work and created a team to implement it. And apparently took credit for the invention. Lovely.