The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued new patents to TiVo covering important aspects of DVR software and hardware design. TiVo also announced that it has obtained an exclusive license to an early DVR-related patent and has been granted Japanese and Chinese patents. Today’s announcement brings TiVo’s patent portfolio to 70 granted patents (domestic and foreign). In addition, TiVo has 106 domestic and foreign patent applications pending. Some of these include:
- U.S. patent number 6,850,691, entitled Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System, describing a system that compensates for a user’s reaction time when the user stops fast-forwarding or rewinding through program material.
- U.S. patent number 6,847,778, entitled Multimedia Visual Progress Indication System, which describes, among other things, methods for displaying a trick play bar to a user which visually indicates the amount of stored program material or the length of a recording session as well as the user’s current position within the stored program material.
- U.S. patent number 6,792,195, entitled Method and Apparatus Implementing Random Access and Time-Based Functions on a Continuous Stream of Formatted Digital Data, which describes methods of controlling streaming media in a digital device, including the functions that enable DVRs to pause live TV as well as rewind, fast-forward, play, play faster, play slower, and play in reverse television signals cached by the DVR.
- TiVo has also acquired the exclusive right to license and enforce U.S. patent number 5,241,428 entitled Variable-Delay Video Recorder known in the industry as the Goldwasser Patent. Filed in March 1991, the Goldwasser Patent is one of the earliest patents regarding digital video recorders of which TiVo is aware. This patent covers devices that permit the simultaneous recording and playback of video material with a variable time delay between recording and playback of a given video program segment.
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