DISH And EchoStar Settle Patent Litigation With TiVo, Agree To Pay $500 Million. DISH Network and EchoStar this morning announced that they’ve agreed to pay TiVo $500 million to settle all of their ongoing patent litigation with the digital video recorder company. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, DISH and EchoStar will initially cough up $300 million, with the remaining $200 million distributed in six equal annual payments between 2012 and 2017.
The companies have agreed to dismiss all pending litigation with prejudice, and to dissolve all injunctions against DISH and EchoStar. In addition, TiVo granted DISH a license under its Time Warp patent and certain related patents, for their remaining lives. Time Warp is technology that essentially allows users to record one TV program while watching another. TiVo says it will also play a role in helping DISH Network promote the Blockbuster digital video service (DISH just acquired substantially all of the assets of Blockbuster, which went belly up in September 2010, for roughly $228 million in cash). Court looks to broader question of patent validity. Posted Tue, April 19th, 2011 12:32 pm by Ronald Mann When the Court heard argument Monday morning in No. 10-290, Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Limited Partnership, it had as distinguished a group of advocates as it is likely to have this Term: former Solicitor General Seth Waxman (for i4i), former Deputy Solicitor General Tom Hungar (for Microsoft) and Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart (for the United States, arguing in support of i4i).
[Disclosure: Goldstein, Howe & Russell, P.C., which sponsors this blog, filed an amicus brief in support of i4i, but the author of this post was not involved in the case.] The case came to the Court presenting a hot topic from contemporary legal scholarship: why should courts give deference to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), requiring "clear and convincing evidence" to overturn a patent based on prior art that the PTO never considered? From the moment Hungar rose to address the Court, the argument focused on the breadth of his position. Apple Patents Glowing, All-Metal Touchpads--What Wondeful Future Does New Tech Suggest? Apple patents are a way to preview how the firm may evolve its technology. When a refreshed device is due soon (MacBooks) it's always tempting to wonder if Apple will reveal cool, freshly patented features...like a whole suite of clever, configurable touchpad improvements. All-metal touchpads Apple's super-simple, large, multitouch touchpads have led the laptop industry for years--recent innovations have seen the pads get a glide-friendly glass coating, adopt the same aluminum color as the rest of Apple's mobile PCs and lose the physical click mouse-button altogether (the entire pad is now a click button).
But Apple imagines its technology going far further than this. What could this create? For starters, an invisible keypad on the bottom of a Mac that has all the usual multitouch powers, but is completely seamless--meaning less chance to introduce dust or spilled coffee into a PC. All-metal keyboard Squeezable iPhones. Apple Spends the Weekend in Court. 10-6. Rivals beware: OnLive says it has a fundamental patent on cloud-based games. Games-on-demand company OnLive said today it has received a fundamental patent covering the invention of cloud-based video games. Steve Perlman, chief executive Palo Alto, Calif. -based OnLive, said in an interview the patent is one of hundreds that the company has filed, and its coverage of the technology involved is very deep. OnLive’s technology is potentially disruptive, since it allows game publishers to sell games to users over a broadband network rather than in stores; it also could disrupt console makers and manufacturers of high-end computers, since it can eliminate the need for either.
The patent covers a “breakthrough” technology where video games run on remote servers in data centers and users with a broadband-connected device — such as a TV, PC, Mac, or mobile device — can instantly play the highest-performance, new-release games with no discs, no downloads and no hardware upgrades. Rivals include Gaikai and Otoy. Don't let cyber attacks kill your game! After Amazon, Masterobjects Takes Google To Court Over Instant Search Patent. Yesterday, I broke the story of a small search software outlet named Masterobjects taking on Amazon.com in a notable patent infringement lawsuit.
The patent-in-suit, US patent no. 7,752,326, describes a method to immediately start showing search results even while a user is still typing his query into the search box – instant search if you will. I and others wondered why Amazon.com was singled out specifically, and not for example Google or Microsoft, which both offer custom search engines that start showing results while a user is entering his query, or Apple (App Store search) or eBay (another ecommerce giant that employs such search technology on its website). Well, turns out Google is indeed the next target on the list. I asked Masterobjects why they waited until now to sue Amazon.com, which started offering ‘search suggestions’ (using technology which Masterobjects alleges infringes it patent) back in 2008.
I also asked why they singled out Amazon specifically. Supreme Court patent cases to watch in 2011. Where Is Awarded The “Mother Of All Geofencing Patents” Just as geo mobile services are taking off, the U.S. Patent Office has awarded an extremely broad patent on “Location-based services” to Where. Patent No. 7,848,765 covers 31 claims ranging from sending an alert to offering a coupon when somebody crosses a geofence with a mobile device. Where CEO Walter Doyle calls it the “mother of all geofencing patents.” A geofence is a predefined boundary on a map. For instance, it could be a two-block radius around a business.
When somebody crosses into that area, they could be offered a geo-targeted ad or coupon. Where applied for the patent five years ago in 2005, well before the current crop of hot geo startups even existed. Where builds mobile apps across every major mobile device platform—including Android, iPhone, and Blackberry—and boasts about 4 million active users a month.