October 5th, 2006
TiVo loses latest round in court with EchoStar
By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
October 3rd, a federal appeals court granted EchoStar Communications’ request to stay a permanent injunction imposed by a lower court. The injunction had prevented EchoStar from continuing to make and sell a certain DVR in the U.S. pending the outcome of EchoStar’s appeal.
Rewind to January 2004, TiVo sued EchoStar over a TiVo patent known as Time Warp. Time Warp allows device to store and play back programs. April of this year, a jury decided that the TiVo Time Warp patent had been violated by EchoStar ruling in favor of TiVo. EchoStar immediately appealed at which point TiVo won an injunction against the satellite-TV operator from making, using and selling DVRs using the Time Warp technology. One last nugget… EchoStar and TiVo are still in business together and extended their agreement period a couple of years!
What do you think?
Source: DVR Playground, Gizmos for Geeks
McCaw Entertainment says:
It’s like Lego’s STUPID lawsuit against (Canadian) Mega Bloks. The courts CLEARLY said you can’t really patten such a design. Trademark law should not be used to perpetuate monopoly rights enjoyed under now-expired patents (the last of Lego’s Canadian patents expired in 1988). It would be as stupid as Coke saying Pepsi can’t sell its product because someone might confuse the two. lol AS IF!
TiVo, just expand your superior offerings in Canada officially. That’s all I ask! lol
October 9th, 2006 at 1:58 pm