In article ,
Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:
(Andre) wrote in message
.com...

If they patented every possible circuit, did that include using a PIC
to decode the signal ?

I notice that my posting listing all the patent numbers is no longer
on Google's archive. The conspiracy theorist in me says this isn't
coincidence.

It's still there, but it doesn't come up in the thread index that you get
from the group's subject list pages. I found it by doing an advanced
search in sci.electronics.repair (it's not cross-posted, like much of
this thread), limited with postings only from you as author, sort by date.

Then under the returned article list is an article with the thread index
with a higher article count than the one in the group's subject list.
(44 vs. 39 as of this afternoon PDT.) (Let's see how long that still
works. :-( Maybe it's an artifact of how the thread indices are cached.
Probably not.)

Hell, let's test it out.

From: (Lewin A.R.W. Edwards)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Video Stabiliser
Date: 30 Jun 2003 13:18:02 -0700

LAE But it is an infringement of MV-owned patents to build almost any
LAE device you can think of that will remove the copy protection.

It is legal for a technician to experiment on *any* circuit they build.

Well, actually no - the ****ed-up DMCA could getcha if you're trying
to crack a hardware copy-protection scheme unless you show it's for
academic research (which could be difficult). It's the same, legally,
as reverse-engineering smartcards to steal DSS service, or
reverse-engineering a DVD player's firmware so you can work out how to
turn off Macrovision on the analog outs.

But anyhow, that's not what I was talking about. Patent violation is
tort law, not criminal. Macrovision filed - and was granted - a large
number of patents related to cracking their technology. The intention
was to enable enforcement action against people who build and sell
Macrovision scrubbers.

For example, see the following US patents:

6,295,360 "Method and apparatus to defeat composite video signal
protection"
6,285,765 "Method and apparatus for reducing effects of copy
protection of composite video signal"
6,173,109 "Method and apparatus for removing or defeating effects of
copy protection signals from video signal"
6,058,191 "Method and apparatus for modifying the envelope of a RF
carrier signal to remove copy protection signals therefrom"
6,002,830 "Method and apparatus for removing or defeating effects of
copy protection signals from a video signal"
5,953,417 "Method and apparatus for digitally removing or defeating
effects of copy protection signals from a video signal"
5,784,523 "Method and apparatus for defeating effects of color burst
modifications to a video signal"
5,748,733 "Method and apparatus to reduce effects of certain copy
protection purses within a video signal"
5,661,801 "Method and apparatus for stabilizing and brightening
prerecorded TV signals encoded with copy protection"
5,625,691 "Method and apparatus to defeat certain copy protection
pulses within a video signal"

Just search USPTO for "macrovision" and you'll see some of their raft
of patents. About 30% of them are patents specifically covering
*defeating* technology, not the copy protection systems themselves.

....

Mark Zenier Washington State resident