April 11th, 2008 by
Filed under: Home Entertainment
DISH Network hasn’t taken “no” “denied” or “not yours” for an answer before in its battle against TiVo before, and it’s not going to start now. In a statement, the company expressed its plans to appeal the Federal Circuit’s ruling against a rehearing to the Supreme Court. No matter how it ends, customers don’t have to worry about jackbooted government agents (or software updates, whatever) stealing their precious DISH DVR functionality, because its “next generation” DVR software has already been downloaded to your box, and does not infringe on any patents. We’ll leave this up to the lawyers to fight out (and write amusing disclaimers about), but in the meantime hit the read link to hear DISH’s side of things.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Posted in supreme court, SupremeCourt, dvr, echostar, lawsuit, dish network, DishNetwork, tivo, dish, appeal | No Comments »
January 20th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
True to its word, the US Supreme Court has started to hear arguments in one of those LG vs Quanta patent suits we’ve been following, with its eventual decision expected to have major effects on the rights of patent holders. Specifically, LG is arguing that since chipsets sold by Intel to Quanta use licensed manufacturing techniques and employ non-Intel components, Quanta also owes LG compensation as per its original agreement with Intel. Pretty confusing, we agree, but the Court’s final decision — expected in June — promises to clear up once and for all what has admittedly become a legal gray area concerning so-called “exhausted” patents.
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Posted in lg, quanta, supreme court, SupremeCourt, court, legal, business, lawsuits, patent disputes, PatentDisputes | No Comments »
October 8th, 2007 by
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Vonage, everyone’s favorite “gettin’ sued by The Man” company has taken another beating in the Sprint-Nextel patent suit, agreeing to settle the case and license the telco’s Internet-calling technology for the tidy sum of $80 million. This comes hot on the heels of last month’s ruling, which stipulated that Vonage was to pay $69.5 million to Sprint over six patents which the mobile phone company says it had infringed. “We are pleased to resolve our dispute with Sprint and enter into a productive future relationship,” said Sharon O’Leary, General Counsel for Vonage, though it’s possible she wasn’t as ecstatic as that quote would have you believe. This is just another money-siphoning event for the VoIP company, which in March was hit up for $66 million from Verizon for illegally using some of its patents. If you’re keeping count at home, that’s $215.5 million paid out. If this keeps up, they may not even be able to afford those snappy commercials anymore. [Warning: read link requires subscription]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Posted in patent, supreme court, SupremeCourt, voip, lawsuit, legal, sprint, suit, vonage, internet telephony, InternetTelephony, infringment, licensing, litigation, nextel | No Comments »
September 25th, 2007 by
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
It looks like LG and Qaunta’s ongoing patent squabble is headed for the big time, with Reuters now reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to step in and sort things out. This is not, however, the DVD-related LG vs. Quanta case that was filed back in July, but rather an entirely different LG vs. Quanta case that ultimately found the U.S. District Court for Northern California ruling against LG, only to have that ruling later overturned by a federal appeals court in July of 2006. According to Reuters, this particular case centers on the touchy issue of whether patent-holders can demand royalties from multiple companies during the manufacturing process — a patent trail that’s also caused a range of other manufacturers including Bizcom, Compal and Scepter to be roped into the case. If all goes as planned, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case “early next year,” with a decision “likely” by the end of June.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Posted in lg, patent, patent case, PatentCase, quanta, supreme court, SupremeCourt | No Comments »