This seems like a clear patent troll, and I cannot believe someone got a patent for just the idea of using your phone to play videos on your TV.
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The three patents relate to “a system for presenting and controlling content on a display device.”
ah, so you mean all computing devices
miracast? Nope
Wii-U? Nope
Logitech Harmony? Nope
Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Remote? Nope
Android Auto/CarPlay? Nope
Touchstream met with Google in December 2011 but was told that the tech giant wasn’t interested in partnering with it in February 2012. For reference, the first generation Google Chromecast was released in 2013.
Not really patent trolling when you meet with the company, they say no, and then they launch their own version.
What did the other side bring to the table lol
Goggle almost certainly said we want androids to play videos on the tv.
And touch stream said "we don't actually have any capabilities to do that, pay us $1 billion"
Where did they say this?
Objection: assuming facts not in evidence.
If you see Western of Texas jury and patent in the same sentence, you can know for a fact it is patent trolls.
wth, roku was 3 years old when that patent was filed.
Companies are notoriously guilty of hindering their competition illegally, usually they don't have a leg to stand on and fold under the weight of tech giants. I hope this is going to start a trend because amazon does the exact same thing.
I'd feel different if there weren't prior art in the form of another companies working product years before they filed the patent. Either that patent isn't valid, or its not close enough to a streaming box to count.
I suspect it is specifically relating to casting. The original Chromecast devices worked very differently than a Roku (but also supports the old casting).
The difference is using a 2nd computing device as a controller it seems, ie using your phone to cast a video to chromecast.
I actually can't believe touchstream won this initial case though because they are definitely a patent troll. The don't make any products themselves they just got an overly broad patent of technology that seemingly already existed (and was pretty obvious) and they go around trying to get companies to pay them licensing fees. And what I read of their patent doesn't even seem like it covers chromecast, they specify a client device -> separate server -> display device not a direct connection to a display device.
The Chromecast still requires an Internet connection though so it's not truly a device to display unless you're mirroring.
Samsung also had casting stuff and I think some of that might predate Chromecast
Might be thinking about DLMA? That wasn't just a Samsung thing but predates this.
The first Miracast stuff was introduced in 2012, so that at least precludes Chromecast which apparently debuted in mid 2013. I'm pretty sure the Samsung thing - which was similar - predated that but was more proprietary and didn't have an official standard. I think it was just called something fairly generic like "Samsung Mirroring" etc as a predecessor to "AllShare"
Nope, that one was more of an access method for media files. Samsung had these little services which you could mirror your whole screen to (not limited to certain apps like Chromecast), but generally only from Samsung phones.
It has been a long time. They can just drag these lawsuits on and on forever.
The whole idea of playing videos on a computer is so heavily patented it's hindering innovation. Even ancient by modern standards MPEG-2 video is still patented in some countries. And then companies keep patenting new codecs and new playback methods ("on a phone", "on a tablet", "from a qr code") that pushes back the clock another 20 years. Same thing happening with AI, where they will make more money from licensing/lawsuits than actual innovation.
Corporations continue to hinder innovation through these pratices. I have to wonder what could be if they stepped off the field.
This headline is much funnier when your skimming headlines and misread it as "Google ordered to pay $339M for stealing the very idea of Christmas"
And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling Whos.
submission statement:
Google has been ordered to pay $338.7 million in damages for patent infringement related to its Chromecast streaming devices.
The patents in question relate to "a system for presenting and controlling content on a display device."
Touchstream Technologies, Inc., the patent holder, claims that Google met with them in 2011 to discuss a partnership, but Google was not interested.
The first generation Chromecast was released in 2013, and the latest Chromecast with Google TV was launched in 2022.
The jury's decision is not final, as Google has said that it intends to appeal.
Cost of doing business. They factor these bullshit minuscule payments into their budget.
Maybe. But it incentivises others to be patient trolls.
It's really sad that patent law doesn't require you to actually create the thing you're patenting.
Yeah that is nothing for them a drop in a bucket thrown into the ocean
Hey now, this isn't one of those trivial "do it on a computer" patents. This is a "do it on two computers" patent.
So funny $339 mil. Its like I stole a Ferrari and I have to pay 10cent for damages.