Wait a minute. Hold the damn phone. Tel. C.O.? Does that mean telephone central office? If so this is bogus. You are either violating the entire patent or you violate none of it. There is no telephone connection required to get Sirius or XM. DirecTV claims that a phone connection is required.

Aside from that, it looks like they patented the process of broadcasting a signal. Brilliant. How the jury didn't find this plainly obvious is way beyond me.

Patents S U C K ! If this company isn't using this idea and cannot prove that it is a working, viable invention this should be tossed.

This is definitely bogus. XM and Sirius receivers don't "phone home" like DirecTV receivers do. There is no communication between the receivers and the service provider, only one-way communication from the broadcast transmitter(s) to the receiver.

Skimmed over it and it looks like a majority of the 505 patent deals with the whole on screen display of directv with the upcoming shows and whatnot, there are some claims that deal with merely distributing non-video data to subscriber hardware in a one-way direction.

I think they might have some case here, but I would not expect a payout nearly as high as the directv case.

Unfortunately, this case was filed in 1991, so it was at a time when this was all fairly new technology and they were able to patent a very broad idea without any issue. Its that whole "non-video" part thats gonna hurt in court.

particular claims that seemed relevent: 7,9,16
I didnt get much past that since I wasnt about to read 47 claims when I have real work to do.

I'm calling shenanigans on this lawsuit! I read through almost the entire patent and I have to say that I can understand why DirecTV lost the suit. The majority of this document has to do with a set-top box that uses 2-way communication via telephonic connection.

Ideally this patent seems to be useful for a service provider that uses tiered programming. Neither SIRIUS or XM uses tiered programming since there is only 1 subscription package. With satellite radio you cannot (currently) chose the channels you do or don't want. Everybody gets full access to all the channels whereas satellite TV providers offer various packages which often come with an additional charge.

If the Finisar Corporation wants to sue based on the way XM and SIRIUS transmit data, I think this is ridiculous too because the patent describes a widely standard method of data compression and transmission, as well as, the encryption/decryption method described in the document. The document also describes another method to work around encryption/decryption "keys" that uses simple time division multiplexing which is no secret to any tech engineers.

If you ask me, this is a desperate attempt by Finisar to try and recoup some money lost in R&D. This company has an accumulated debt of 1.2 Billion dollars.

I'm no expert but I feel confident that XM and SIRIUS won't lose this lawsuit.

>>I can understand why DirecTV lost the suit. The majority of this document has to do with a set-top box that uses 2-way communication via telephonic connection.

The telephone hookup isn't "required" to get DirecTV. I have DirecTV and it has NEVER been hooked up to a phone line. If I want a pay per view I order it myself by calling in. The box doesn't do it.

Hopefully DirecTV is appealing this ruling. I am certain that they won't lose sleep over the $100 million but that $1.69 per box, per month until 2012 would cause issues.

Sirius/XM will not lose this fight and they were both right to ignore this extortion attempt. I hope that there is some means for them to sue this company for this to recoup expenses.

actually nothing in the claims says anything about a telephone connection. it a matter of distributing data via satellite to individual customer receivers. not all of it applies to satrad, but some could read on it, especially since they specify non-video transmissions.

by tiered i do not think they are referring to subscription tiers. I thought it read more as tiers of broadcasting, i.e. channels 1-50, 51-100 etc. being broadcast together to allow faster processing between those. also, it has been proven by both companies that they have the ability to block, or transmit certain channels depending on user request, so that could fall under the other definition of tier.

I see a case where both companies could end up paying. the only difference is sirius will settle out of court yet again.

"The telephone hookup isn't "required" to get DirecTV. I have DirecTV and it has NEVER been hooked up to a phone line. If I want a pay per view I order it myself by calling in. The box doesn't do it."

IIRC the TOS for DTV states it is required. And IIRC they were cracking down on those without phone lines.

When I had DTV, I hardly ever had the phone connected. Didn't interrupt service, but in their TOS, it was required.

IIRC the TOS for DTV states it is required. And IIRC they were cracking down on those without phone lines.

When I had DTV, I hardly ever had the phone connected. Didn't interrupt service, but in their TOS, it was required.>

I have DTV also, and it has never been hooked up to a phone line. The installer even said that it wasn't necessary.