The Mercury News is reporting that on January 3rd, Lycos filed a patent lawsuit against TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster over their use of recommendation technology. The article doesn’t give the exact patents that are alleged to be violated, but a quick scan of Lycos’ patent filings shows patents 6775664 and 6308175 as the most likely candidates.

Patent 6775664 was originally filed on Oct. 22, 2001 and describes a search method that uses a user feedback system to provide “collaborative feedback data for integration with content profile data in the operation of the collaborative/content-based filter.”

Patent 6308175 was filed on Nov. 19th, 1998 and according to the patent, it covers technology whose “filter system compares received informons to the individual user’s query profile data, combined with collaborative data, and ranks, in order of value, informons found to be relevant. The system maintains the ranked informons in a stored list from which the individual user can select any listed informon for consideration.”

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A periodic roundup of relevant news…

• Netflix Previews signal upcoming download service: Hacking Netflix
• Microsoft patents DVR targeted advertising: Engadget
• Delphi SkyFi3 reviewed: Orbitcast
• 12 days of Sling Media giveaways: Sling Community

A periodic roundup of relevant news…

• Beatles and Apple near exclusive iTunes deal: Fortune
• EchoStar retrial on TiVo patents denied: Denver Post
• Will paying for user video pay off: GigaOm
• Xbox movie downloads timed: Gizmodo
• Control BeyondTV with Slingbox: Fresh Arrival
• TiVo Glo Remote available for 8,500 Reward Points: TiVo

Apparently Mike Arrington was at TechCrunch New York on Thursday night. Given that there were no introductions, no speeches or toasts, I had my doubts. I’m not one to stand on ceremony, but shouldn’t there at least have been a welcome to everyone?

I did get some gratification, however. After announcing my status as official member of the press, I got the wave from one of the door monitors and a chance to jump the registration line. That plus the glowing swizzle stick in my drink (which I admit I tried to use as a straw) really made my night.

As mentioned in Tech Crunch, Part 1, there were several companies at the event in the video search game. The ones I saw included CozmoTV (like Pandora for video), AOL’s SearchVideo and Gotuit. Gotuit was my favorite so you should keep reading to the end of this post.

CozmoTV lets you run keyword searches and then creates a channel around any video you choose. You rate the results and the engine refines your personalized channel. All channels are automatically public, and you can search for other people’s channels if you know their usernames. Currently the service searches YouTube and Google (um, aren’t they the same thing now?), and apparently the roadmap includes being able to transfer videos to a TiVo sometime in the future. CozmoTV is currently still in beta, but the company plans to launch in roughly the next couple of weeks.

SearchVideo was acquired by AOL and apparently is one of the ways in which AOL is quietly establishing a leadership in video. (AOL? Really?) SearchVideo has some nice ways to sort search results of video on the Web - by popularity, chronology, relevancy, etc. - but it’s not terribly flashy. AOL’s going with simple, and given where the company has been successful, maybe that’s not a bad idea.

Gotoit is focusing on a different kind of video search. Instead of just searching for particular videos, Gotuit has a product, Gotuit On Demand, that searches within videos. The company has a patent on technology that tags video segments and indexes them for access and use in playlists. As I understood it, the technology is part automated and part based on human input. Not sure how the two interplay behind the scenes, but the demo was cool. Gotuit has also found a way to integrate with your fantasy football teams. Looking for highlights for someone on your roster? You can bring up relevant plays online and even on your phone.

Gotuit has been around for a while, and unlike some of the other Web-only plays, Gotuit has already done deal with operators. There are regional deployments of Gotuit On Demand via TimeWarner and Comcast, as well as a deal with Sprint. This company is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Update: My snippy intro to this post was apparently incorrect. Valleywag reports — much later in the night — after Arrington stood on what might have been a bed and thanked the crowd and namechecked the fine companies making the evening possible and received his bobblehead doll.

So sorry I missed it.

While Davis Freeberg believes recent developments in the TiVo/Echostar patent infringement suit may indicate an imminent settlement, a ZNF secret agent has a different take. -DZ

The story so far
TiVo filed a patent infringement suit against Echostar covering most of Echostar’s DVRs. In April, a jury found that Echostar infringed TiVo’s patent on all the contested claims, that the patent was valid, and that the infringement was willful. The jury awarded TiVo about $73 million dollars in damages. Later the judge in the case increased the damages to about $88 million (for interest during the period of infringement and damages and interest from the time between the jury award and the final judgment). He also ordered an injunction, preventing Echostar from further use or sale of the infringing DVRs (i.e., Echostar had to turn off more than three million of their customer’s DVRs). Echostar appealed the verdict, and was given a stay of the injunction.

What just happened
Recently Echostar made a motion to the appeals court to extend the time, by 60 days, for them to file their so-called “Blue Brief” (i.e., the appellant’s primary brief to the court). The brief was due 10/23. It was an unusual request because appeals courts are notoriously unforgiving, and would likely reject such a request unless it was for a very good reason. Tivo responded to the motion, and Echostar replied to TiVo’s response.

Today, the motion was ruled moot (i.e., irrelevant), because the court issued this order:

ORDERED: Briefing schedule stayed. EchoStar to notify this court within 14 days of date of disposition of final postjudgment motion in dist ct.

What this means is that the entire appeal has been put on hold. Why? Because the court has determined that some aspect of the “final postjudgment motion” must be resolved before the case can proceed. (This issue was probably the reason that Echostar requested the delay, but the court, being no-nonsense, realized that 60 days was arbitrary, and simply said, “tell us when it has been resolved”.)

What is the issue?
The real question is what this “final postjudgment motion” is, and what does it contain that would put the appeal on hold? Not having the actual order from the court, we have to speculate. As I see it, there are two possibilities:

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Davis Freeberg believes recent developments in the TiVo/Echostar patent infringement suit may indicate an imminent settlement. -DZ

In the latest twist for the blogosphere’s favorite patent telenovela, the Federal Appeals court overseeing the current stage of TiVo’s patent case against Dish, has put EchoStar’s patent appeal on pause for the next 14 days, pending the settlement of the case. According to the Pacer court of appeals website, the following entry was recorded last night.

10/30/2006: ORDERED: Briefing schedule stayed. EchoStar to notify this court within 14 days of date of disposition of final postjudgment motion in dist ct. By: Motions Panel. Judge: Gajarsa
SERVICE: by Mail on 10/30/2006

In addition to this order item, there was also the following action posted on the site:

ACTION: Entry 27: Motion moot

While I don’t play a legal expert on TV or even pretend to understand the subtle legalese of the Pacer website, I did contact a friend of mine who is an attorney in Texas, and he said that the order likely meant that TiVo and Echostar are very close to a settlement, but that the details haven’t been completely finalized.

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Never enough time…

• Copy and collate Internet video with Tioti. (TechCrunch)
• Tag DRM-ed Amazon products as such. (Defective by Design)
• Buy an HD DVD player, get three HD DVDs free. (EngadgetHD)
• Another Apple iPod touch screen patent application. (Apple Insider)

The story so far…

September, 2006
Digeo, maker of the Moxi DVR, files an antitrust lawsuit against Gemstar, the TV Guide electronic/interactive programming guide folks, as described in the Seattle Times:

The rivalry between Digeo and Gemstar surfaced Thursday in federal court in Seattle, where Digeo filed a lawsuit claiming that Gemstar violated federal and state antitrust laws. Digeo said that it asked to license a subset of the 249 patents in Gemstar’s IPG portfolio, but that Gemstar insisted Digeo license the entire portfolio. If Digeo didn’t sign that licensing agreement, the suit said, it would be sued by Gemstar for patent infringement. Digeo is seeking damages in court and an order that stops Gemstar’s licensing practices.

October, 2006
Gemstar responds (retaliates?) with with a patent infringement lawsuit against Digeo, as described in the Broadcast Newsroom:

“We have attempted over an extended period of time to engage in patent licensing discussions with Digeo regarding the Moxi guide Digeo’s refusal to negotiate a patent license with us, and its decision to file suit against us, left us no option except to pursue legal remedies to protect the value of our intellectual property,” Gemstar executive VP and general counsel Stephen Kay said in a prepared statement Friday.

No surprises here… Gemstar has been quite aggressive in going after competing EPGs and Digeo refused to be strong-armed. TiVo faced a similar Gemstar suit several years ago, which resulted in a partnership (notice the TV Guide logos and related TiVo Showcase). It’s also worth noting that Comcast has been an equity investor/partner with both Gemstar and TiVo. Corporate nepotism, anticompetitive practices?