lawsuit posts
by Darren Murph 
posted Oct 29th 2009 at 9:14AM
by Nilay Patel posted Sep 5th 2009 at 7:28PM
Okay, so it's not the cool billion dollars in damages we'd heard TiVo was asking for, but $200 million ain't chump change if you're broke, you know? That's the amount in contempt damages TiVo will get if EchoStar loses its upcoming appeal in the endless time warp patent case, bringing the total amount of money on the table to nearly $400 million. As usual, that means virtually nothing for the average Dish or TiVo customer, but at least the lawyers involved can all buy new Audis for the winter now.by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 4th 2009 at 12:51PM
by Richard Lawler posted Aug 26th 2009 at 8:13PM
We'll let the analysts make sense of TiVo's new projection that it will lose $8 to $10 million in the third quarter, larger than Wall Street expectations while projected revenues are lower -- we're too busy adding Verizon and AT&T to the patent battlemap. Today it filed complaints against both for violating three of its DVR-related patents -- Nos. 6,233,389 B1 ("Multimedia Time Warping System"), 7,529,465 B2 ("System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams"), and 7,493,015 B1 ("Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System") if you must know -- seeking damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction. We'd assumed it would wait until settling things with DISH to push forward against other companies, but it looks like we're not the only ones getting impatient. Beyond the legal slapfight there's a few nuggets for the bleep bloop faithful, with the Comcast TiVo on-line scheduler beginning to roll out in Boston plus further expansions on the way and the due-in-2010 DirecTV HD TiVo still on track -- we'll need a few seasons of Law & Order queued up before this mess ever gets resolved.by Ben Drawbaugh posted Aug 18th 2009 at 8:47AM
by Steven Kim posted Aug 13th 2009 at 6:44PM
When it rains it pours -- right on the heels of the punishing blow dealt to RealDVD, the money-laden Kaleidescape crowd suffered its own setback at the hands of the law. You just know that the DVD CCA (Copy Control Association) appealed the 2007 ruling that allowed Kaleidescape owners to rip DVDs to their media servers, and yesterday a California Appeals Court overturned that ruling. Next stop -- the Santa Clara Superior Court, which could place an injunction on Kaleidescape if the appeal is upheld. It's not over yet, but we're prepping the soundboard with ominous music, boos and noisy hand-wringing. Whatever (and whenever) the outcome, we can only hope that Blu-ray's Managed Copy comes to the scene sooner rather than later and settles this issue for our beloved HD contentby Darren Murph posted Aug 12th 2009 at 2:02AM
We are disappointed that a preliminary injunction has been placed on the sale of RealDVD. We have just received the Judge's detailed ruling and are reviewing it. After we have done so fully, we'll determine our course of action and will have more to say at that time.[Via Electronista]
by Richard Lawler posted Aug 5th 2009 at 9:04AM
You knew it couldn't be over, right? The long running TiVo vs. DISH / Echostar patent case took a not-so-new twist yesterday when the Patent and Trademark Office issued a preliminary finding rejecting some of the claims of its Time Warp patent. While DISH was pleased, considering the PTO's conclusions as "highly relevant" to its ongoing appeal, TiVo issued a statement calling this step "not unusual" pointing out that the exact same thing happened when its patent was reexamined in 2005 (and subsequently upheld in 2007,) and that the next step in the process is where it will be able to present its explanation for the first time. All you need to know is that it will still be a while before anyone involved (except the two company's lawyers) are cashing any large checks, or gets their DVR taken away.by Nilay Patel posted Jul 13th 2009 at 10:41PM
by Steven Kim posted Jul 10th 2009 at 10:09AM
by Nilay Patel posted Jun 25th 2009 at 4:01PM
We just spent some time talking to Sharp's reps about that ITC ban on its LCD panels, and while they certainly didn't sound happy about the ruling, they made it clear that it shouldn't have too much of an effect on US consumers -- Aquos TVs and Sharp professional LCD displays currently on shelves are fine to be sold, and updated models have been hitting the channel as of last month. As you'd expect, the new displays have been re-engineered to workaround the Samsung patent in question, but here's where it gets confusing: the basic model numbers haven't changed. Instead, the new units have an "N" at the end, so a TV like the Aquos LC52-E77U will now be labeled LC52-E77UN. Sharp says the updated models have exactly the same specs as the outgoing ones, but we're waiting on a detailed list of spec changes -- or better, a side-by-side comparison -- so we can decide whether or not the HDTV equivalents of a pre-CBS Fender are floating around out there.by Nilay Patel posted Jun 24th 2009 at 4:17PM 
by Steven Kim posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 2:04PM
When it comes to Blu-ray deck price decreases, we'll take whatever we can get -- especially with the naysaying that seems to follow the format these days. So file the fact that Zoran and DTS have put their legal disputes behind them, and Zoran plans to have single-chip solutions for Blu-ray decoding with support for DTS' codecs shipping by the end of the year under "more competition has to be good." Zoran filed suit against DTS back in October, claiming that the company wasn't being fair in its codec licensing terms; not surprisingly, Zoran wasn't granted a license. But the suits ironed it all out, and after paying out a settlement that will have a "modestly positive" impact on DTS' financials, Zoran is the latest licensee to the DTS codecs.by Nilay Patel posted Jun 22nd 2009 at 2:12PM
by Nilay Patel posted Jun 3rd 2009 at 7:45PM
It's the case that never ends -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a temporary delay of the injunction and fine handed down yesterday in the EchoStar / TiVo lawsuit while it considers an appeal, meaning that DISH owners with older DVRs won't have to worry about losing their pause-and-rewind functionality at least for now. That pretty much means we're back in stasis with this one, with even more delay to come if the appeal is granted. That's cool, we needed a nap anyway.
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