This story right here is what I like to call “blogging gold.” Only a week or so after I became aware that Deutsche Telekom had not only trademarked the color magenta, but was also actively bigfooting companies that had the temerity to put magenta in their logos, DT has gone after Engadget Mobile. (Thanks to [...]
TiVoStephen posted this comment here on the blog in response to the last update about the lockdown of the HBO John Adams miniseries, and I wanted to draw it to your attention (and thanks so much, Stephen, for responding here!):
“I’m Stephen Mack, Director of Operations at TiVo. It has recently come to our attention that [...]
As we’re agitating for greater and greater freedom of digital media, less restrictive digital rights management, and the arrival of sanity in the patent- and trademark-granting universe, I thought this Times editorial by Billy Bragg and this agreement by Nicholas Carr were worth noting. For background, Bragg argues that Bebo.com founder Michael Birch, who just [...]
… should it really be magenta? Thanks to Philip for tipping me off to the fact that Deutsche Telekom has evidently claimed trademark rights to the color magenta, and is, in fact, attempting to force a Dutch firm called Compello to change its corporate logo due to the color infringement.
And in a sign that the [...]
It looks like the mystery of TiVo locking down HBO’s John Adams miniseries has been solved–and it’s not a happy resolution. Dean writes:
I looked at the TiVo website that was displayed on my TV last night, and found this. I was watching the broadcast on a TiVo HD on a HBO HD channel, with [...]
UPDATE: Original post is now below; Dean emailed back to say, “HBO did in fact broadcast the series John Adams with the same TiVo copy protection that I emailed you about earlier.” This is the first instance I know of in which TiVo is allowing copy protection restrictions to be applied on non-VOD or pay-per-view [...]
Apple is being sued by ZapMedia Services, Inc. for infringing patents that cover, in essence, the fundamental workings of the iPod and iTunes. According to AppleInsider, ZapMedia Services, Inc. (which is actually a larger group that bought what used to be ZapMedia Inc. ) owns two patents that basically cover the concept of distributing and [...]
Ars has an excellent story today on the growing problem of patents on video game mechanics. The story notes that Sega, for example, “has a lock on the idea of driving a car around a city with an arrow pointing towards the next destination,” and in fact sued Fox Entertainment, EA, and Radical Games when [...]
A lot of sources reporting this weekend on how a U.S. House of Representatives panel killed of a particularly gnarly section of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act currently making its way through the halls of Congress.
That part is true, and, as much as some of the elements of this law [...]
If there’s anything that could undermine my sympathy for the Scrabulous guys, it’s the looming possibility of their own greed. Hasbro and Mattel came off like the bad guys when they went after the makers of Scrabulous, the little Facebook app that could, and demanded that the Indian brothers who created the game shut the [...]