Hulu Sued ... is BeyondTV Next?

[Nick Burns]

Hulu Sued For Violating 'TV Guide' Patent

Earlier this year, we noted that Rovi (the hip new name for DRM company Macrovision) had taken a bunch of the patents it got when it bought Gemstar/TV Guide a few years back, and sued Amazon for daring to offer a TV listing on IMDB. Apparently Rovi is having so much fun suing people for doing totally obvious things that it's expanded the effort and is now suing Hulu as well. It's interesting to see that it's actually using different patents in this case, compared to in the Amazon case, but that doesn't make them any less questionable:

• 6,396,546: "Electronic television program guide schedule system and method"
• 7,103,906: "User controlled multi-device media-on-demand system"
• 7,769,775: "Search engine for video and graphics with access authorization"

Yet another case where actually doing the obvious thing to provide the obvious service you want to offer... gets you sued. America's innovation system at work.

Sounds like a couple of those patents cover what BTV does.

[Kilrsat]

We have had appropriate license agreements in place with Gemstar/Rovi/TV Guide for a long time.

[Nick Burns]

Ah, actually this was a tongue-in-cheek post...it's sad that you have to even DO licensing due to these overly-broad and obvious patents.

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by Nick Burns

Ah, actually this was a tongue-in-cheek post...it's sad that you have to even DO licensing due to these overly-broad and obvious patents.

I expect Mr. Bucks-Up to challenge these patents because they seem to be something that would have been discovered and utilized by every one in this field. Plus, they seem to be over-broad.