Patents: 1, Innovation: 0. SonicBlue, the company that bought out ReplayTV (and was recently awarded bullshit patents that Replay had applied for, covering everything you can do with a computer and a TV) is now negotiating with their rival TiVo to extort patent license fees from ’em.

TiVo, unlike SonicBlue, has actually shipped a successful, popular PVR, by innovating, inventing novel ways of constructing the user interface and user experience of their product. Now, SonicBlue, a company that’s shipped damned few units, gets to club TiVo with their patent, extracting licensing fees from TiVo for stuff that TiVo independently invented and successfully implemented (that’s the hard part, anyway). It’s revolting that the government actually grants limited monopolies to the first carpetbagger company that comes along and hollers “Dibs!” and what’s more, does so in the name of fostering innovation.

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