What a system we live in. After having multiple requests denied, Qualcomm (or at least those third-parties using its 3G chipsets) was just granted a stay which again opens the door for the US import of Qualcomm-based handsets. Right, those same handsets banned by the ITC at the request of Broadcom on June 7th. In essence, the ruling means that Qualcomm can not import phones but others -- namely, Motorola, Samsung, T-Mobile, LG, AT&T -- can. Note, this isn't a reversal of the original decision and only remains in effect pending appeal. In other words, this is nowhere near to being over.

[Via Phonemag]

This morning a judge for the US Court of Appeals handed Vonage the best news it's heard in weeks: a permanent stay on the previous court's decision that put a stop to new customer sign-ups during the appeal process of its ongoing patent lawsuit with Verizon. We ran through Vonage's pity plea the other day, and while we're not sure if its sad state of affairs or the potential shadiness of Verizon's patents prompted the judge to give Vonage a new lease on life -- Vonage calls it "business as usual" -- we do know that Vonage isn't out of the woods by any means.

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Things just went from "really bad" to "oh man that sucks" for Vonage. The VoIP provider is requesting a permanent stay on Judge Claude Hilton's decision in the Verizon patent suit, which decrees that Vonage can't sign up any new customers until it figures out a way to provide them service that doesn't infringe upon Verizon's patents. Vonage had already been granted a temporary stay, saying that they'd drum up a workaround, but this new request is much more pessimistic, saying that because Verizon's patents are so broad, such technology would take months to develop, "if even feasible." The unlucky company is making a bit of a pity play as well, saying that even if it "was somehow able to implement a design around, and was able to ultimately prevail on appeal, it would have no hope of regaining its lost customers, or its lost goodwill, and its loss of revenue would be permanent and..." Oddly, the statement cuts out there, because the rest of it was redacted as "confidential material." The whole Vonage statement is in fact riddled with such holes, making it hard to figure out exactly what's going on -- other than the fact that Vonage doesn't like its chances of building a workaround. No mention of that VoIP Inc. safety net either, but perhaps Vonage still thinks it has a shot at doing this the old fashioned way.

[Via GigaOM]

Update: Tier 1 research analyst Daniel Berninger points out that it's actually possible that Verizon's patents may be illegitimate. Apparently the two patents in question, 6,104,711 (filed March 6, 1997) and 6,282,574 (filed February 24, 2000) may themselves use technology openly discussed and published by VocalTec back in 1996. In fact, it may also indirectly include technology input from the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Nortel, etc. made during the VoIP Forum in 1996, with the businesses' original intentions that this tech be used in future open standards. Can anything be proved here that would give Vonage a get out of jail free card? Well, we're certainly not lawyers (we'll defer to the legally-inclined in our audience), but already this patent he-said she-said is smacking a bit of RIM and NTP's fracas, and we all know how ugly that wound up being for the BlackBerry maker.

Even though its customers were the ones getting down at nationwide TiVo House Parties this past weekend, it was the company itself that woke up with a nasty hangover. In the latest development surrounding the most drawn-out patent dispute the consumer electronics industry has seen since that RIM / NTP debacle, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just granted DISH-parent Echostar a temporary stay on an injunction that would have shut down its DVR service and halted sales of related hardware. You probably remember that TiVo won a $74 million jury verdict in this case back in April, when the Texas panel apparently agreed with the DVR pioneer that Echostar (who also had access to an early TiVo prototype box) had violated its so-called "Time Warp" patent. After much legal posturing, the award was upped to $90 million and the satellite TV provider was given 30 days to disable the time-shifting functionality on its STBs; luckily for DISH customers, the injunction was granted a temporary stay while the merits of Echostar's appeals case were weighed. Well the court has finally ruled that Echostar does indeed have a solid case, and that the company can therefore continue offering DVR services until its appeals have been exhausted. Sounds like bad news for TiVo, until you notice a snippet of Echostar's followup press release which reads, "We also continue to work on modifications to our new DVRs, and to our DVRs in the field, intended to avoid future alleged infringement." If Echostar is so confident in its lack of culpability here, why make changes to its supposedly non-infringing devices? Stay tuned, folks, as this one's not over yet -- not by a long shot.

[Via Zatz Not Funny]