MLB Gets A Patent On Making It More Difficult To Watch Your Favorite Baseball Team Online
from the but-why? dept
One of the most annoying things about Major League Baseball's online viewing options is the ridiculous "blackout" areas. Basically, you can watch any team you want... as long as they're not our local team. Seriously. The misguided fear was that the local TV stations would lose out on revenue because people would be watching online instead of on TV. This is similar to the incredibly wrong theories when TV first became popular that local TV shouldn't be allowed to show local games if the stadiums weren't sold out. Rather than recognizing that giving fans more tools to watch games however they want, they seem to think that fans can be forced to watch in the method MLB wants. However, now MLB.com has taken it even further. It's patented its method for determining who to block out.You can check out the full patent yourself to see if you can figure out how this was granted. If you asked any half-way competent programmer how to set up such a system, they could all come up with something identical to this. How is this possibly not obvious? Determining where an internet user is geographically has been around for ages. Limiting access by subscription levels has been around forever. Combining the two hardly seems new and innovative. This seems like it should fail based on general obviousness, as well as the new tests under the KSR ruling (on obviousness) and the Bilski ruling (on pure software patents). About the only "good" that comes of this is that perhaps it means other sports leagues won't use such an anti-fan policy.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: baseball, blackout, patents, regional
Companies: mlb.com
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Imagine if musicians followed the same logic.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The fence works both ways...
For someone who doesn't have cable (I have FiOS), terrestrial radio (they block online radio), or hang out at sports bars, trying to get involved is tough. Whoever is in charge seems to do everything they can to keep me from learning about the game. I decided it's just not the worth the energy to become a fan of the sport.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The fence works both ways...
Really, who doesn't own a radio? Games are also on satellite radio.
All the sports bars I know of have Red Sox games on. They wouldn't be SPORTS bars if they didn't show the home teams. Most local watering holes have the Sox, Celtics, Pats, Bruins and college sports on their screens.
You must be some eccentric Yankee fan or just another hairy-palmed another internet troll.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: The fence works both ways...
He said that it is hard for someone who DOES NOT have cable, or DOES NOT want to hang out at sports bars to get into the game. He didn't say the game wasn't onscreen at sports bars.
Also, the Sox being available on FiOS, is very different form being available as part of the basic TV package. This is a guy wanting to learn more about the Sox, not someone who wants to buy an expensive FiOS add-in MLB package.
He's no troll. He's representative of a big part of the market: people who would tune in to the Sox if it were easy or cheap, but will not hang out in bars or fork out big subscriptions for a brand to which they are not yet loyal fans.
The bigger point is, how does MLB make new fans or more fans if their modus operandi is to block access to their brand, and to tell your market how/where/when they MUST consume the product.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The fence works both ways...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: The fence works both ways...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You should be glad they got a patent
2) If, after considering that, the patent still annoys you, and if it claims something as obvious as you say, put together a packet of documents proving that the components ideas were around before the application was filed and articulate why it would be obvious to combine them in this misguided manner. That will invalidate the patent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You should be glad they got a patent
MLB probably sought the patent defensively. If some other company patents this process, then MLB is open to a lawsuit. That's ridiculous. And collecting the data to invalidate a patent isn't as easy as saying it's obvious either. Even if it is obvious.
But not only is that a bad idea, the idea of blocking people hurts MLB. In other words, in a few years we might hear talks of how baseball isn't doing so well financially. There may be an attempt to cajole taxpayers into making up the difference.
A good example may be the recent banking problems. Bad business model leads to business failure. Bailout money from taxpayers. Large bonuses to executives.
I don't know if that will happen. In fact, I have no idea how well MLB is doing financially. I do know that taxpayers already cover a lot of the expenses for these teams. And instead of a bit of goodwill, we see an attempt to lock out their fans.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If you believe that, you haven't been paying attention much.
4) The patent in questions claims Systems (i.e., machines) and is therefore, not covered by any ruling in Bilski.
Ha! That's what a bunch of lawyers said right after the ruling, but that's not what's happened in practice. Bilski doesn't mean that if you include some magic words sprinkled into the patent you're fine. "Systems" doesn't protect you from being rejected under Bilski.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patented a Tool for Reducing Sales
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Selig is a tool
Now, if you are lucky you might get one game a week, and its usually the Yankees or Red Sox, its way too expensive to go to the games for most families, and the idiot Selig thinks he is improving the game.
Living in Vegas, where we have no MLB team, and by no team i mean no team within 4 1/2 hours of us......every west coast team except Seattle is blacked out (Oakland, San Francisco, LA Angels, LA Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks).......tell me thats not the most ridiculous setup in the world? WTF are Oakland and San Francisco blacked out for? 11 hours away!!!!!
This is almost as bad as the DirecTV monopoly on NFL games.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Selig is a tool
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Of course, when this whole thing fails (because let's face it, only fans who don't live in their team's cities would ever consider paying for it), MLB will just complain about people "pirating" their broadcasts by retransmitting them from their homes via something like Orb or Slingbox, despite the fact that these viewers are actually paying for the broadcast in the first place.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
For further proof that this approach doesn't work...
Last year Dollar Bill died and his son Rocky took over. The first thing he did was put the Hawks on TV. The fan response was immediate, leading to them selling out every game in the tail end of last year and EVERY home game this year.
Thank you Rocky and fuck you, Bill.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I was really excited when I found out MLB was going to broadcast all the games online, in HD and was almost going to sign up for the season package until I realized I couldn't watch any Seattle games, Thanks MLB!
I could always go to a Bar, but then the money I spend on beer and wings it would be chearper to get cable :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Actually, that's the guts of the patent in question. The patent is around a system for using TWO methods of determining location. If the first one returns a weak confidence level of the location of the viewer (ie, it looks like you're using a proxy, or something is fishy), then they will use a second method (like a verification phone call from a fixed phone, a mobile phone LBS signal, etc.)
The patent is actually on the "more than one method" notion.
Lame patent. Lame business idea. Give people less, charge more. Get your stadium funded by taxpayers. The MLB.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Les
That is generally true if the idea is obvious and also good. In this case, the idea appears bad. However, the patent is not about blocking viewers, but is around using two methods to determine location with a certain confidence level.
What if Yahoo wants to offer local news headlines to viewers of their portal? If they use two methods to locate the user, MLB could demand a license fee. Ridiculous.
Les, locking up ideas is bad for the economy, and good for the monopoly holder. If this results in more inventions, then overall society may benefit. But locking up dumb-ass, obvious ideas like using 2 location techniques instead of one offers no invention benefit, but has monopoly costs. Net loss.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lessons from Pro Boxing
A sport builds lifetime fans from kids who get exposed to it. Boxing has lost a generation of fans by making it too hard to watch the events. MLB, are you listening?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hulu, MTV do this already
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Who cares?
So, who cares about baseball? In fact I watch a lot less sports than I used to. I didn't watch a single Olympic event because I figure that it is now about who can do the best job of taking performance enhancing drugs without getting caught.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
From the the middle paragraph on page 14 of the PTO's -BRIEF FOR THE RESPONDENT IN OPPOSITION-- Re: the petition for Cert in Bilski:
"In any event, the court of appeals emphasized that its decision in this case (Bilski) does not address the application of the machine-or-transfromation test to computer software, data-manipulation techniques, or other such technologies not involved in the petitioners' risk-hedging claim."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Also, this just in:
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/05/19/bilski-not-so-bad-for-software-patents-after-all/id=3582 /risk-hedging claim."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/03/patentable-subject-matter-redux-bilski-2009.html
Details... details...
Anyone who thinks it's easier to get software patents than in the past, and that this is "good news" is not someone worth paying attention to.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So, I guess you're just going to ignore my earlier post:
From the the middle paragraph on page 14 of the PTO's -BRIEF FOR THE RESPONDENT IN OPPOSITION-- Re: the petition for Cert in Bilski:
"In any event, the court of appeals emphasized that its decision in this case (Bilski) does not address the application of the machine-or-transfromation test to computer software, data-manipulation techniques, or other such technologies not involved in the petitioners' risk-hedging claim."
details, details.........
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
First, off, I don't have to respond to every comment. We get nearly 1,000 comments per day here. So I pick and choose. And that comment seemed irrelevant and is taken way way out of context. Anyway, you can rely on that all you want, but if the USPTO is actually rejecting claims based on Bilski, it suggests that the folks there have actually read the decision and understand the context.
Details... details...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike's Opinion of Bilski vs Software
T hat's the first and only big district court case since Bilski where 101 was pled (if you practiced, you'd know that 103 is still being argued a LOT more). Also, the cert brief misrepresents Bilski's actual quote: "although invited to do so by several amici, we decline to adopt a broad exclusion over software." The CAFC said they're not making a de facto rule that all software is ineligible -- that would go against Diehr. Bilski follows Diehr to the T -- patents must have a particular machine or transformation to be eligible, and some software may satisfy that.
Subsequently, the near 2 dozen BPAI cases since have all said that a general purpose computer do not constitute a particular machine. Cybersource specifically said that Beauregard claims do NOT magically obtain eligibility. Further, clients/servers/clouds/keyboards/data collectors/ip address/NICs/displays are generally insufficient to confer eligibility.
Regardless, MS, IBM, and Intel all have way too much invested in this. And if you didn't know, multiple practitioners have been writing bullshit software claims (stuff that no one would ever use) in a race to get them up to the Supreme Court so they can be the principle party in the litigating the issue that will shape our next 100+ years of patent law -- whether a general purpose computer constitutes a particular machine.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
they are both retarded - Mikey and Bilski
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yahoo would be free to ask the user where he/she is. MLB is addressing the case where the user has a motive to lie. Its a very limited case.
If MLB's method is as obvious as you say, why did the examiner allow it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Heh, this is the USPTO we're talking about... they allow tons of obvious things through. Because if they reject it, it's more work for them. Also, the standard for obviousness has been woefully inadequate for ages (even post KSR). It's way too reliant on prior art, and not at all reliant on PHOSITA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But that's one of our core complaints. The USPTO allows way too much obvious crap through, making a patent thicket that makes it harder for companies to innovate (Yahoo in the example). Yahoo has big lawyers, so they might persevere, but two guys in the garage might not.
Also, the examiner allowed it because the system is flawed, and biased in favor of more patents. The USPTO makes its revenue from issuing patents. They encourage patent applications. They measure their success by number of patents issued. Should we be surprised they err on the side of issuing the patent?
Your question is tautological. You are saying "It's worthy of being a patent, because it was made a patent." This is like the frequent arguments we've seen in Techdirt comments that say: "The patent laws are good and right, because they are the law." People make the laws. We are the people. We can make them better.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So what your saying is
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
MLB.something
[ link to this | view in chronology ]