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Emblaze goes flame on, sues Microsoft and Apple for patent infringement
It looks like it's going to be one of those days. Emblaze, parent company of Else and creator of the First Else that we felt compelled to check the pulse of at CES, is going down the long, dangerous road of patent disputes, challenging both Microsoft and Apple with a lawsuit having something to do with streaming of media. Emblaze didn't say which patent was being infringed upon, but did say that Microsoft is doing the infringing in the tech behind its Silverlight Smooth Streaming, and that naughty boy Apple's HTTP Live Streaming is at fault. While we generally scoff at these sorts of things, this is the first such lawsuit we've seen from Emblaze, and investors at least think it has merit, boosting the company's shares by 13.5 percent. But what do investors know about patent disputes? Update: Dan from StreamingMedia wrote in to let us know that the patent in question is the vague, 1999-vintage 6,389,473 called "Network Media Streaming." It covers "a method for real-time broadcasting from a transmitting computer to one or more client computers over a network." We'll go ahead and let you draw your own conclusions.
DISH / EchoStar ordered to pay TiVo $190 million in patent infringement case
We're a bit hesitant to call this one done given the history involved, but a federal judge in Texas has dealt DISH / EchoStar yet another serious blow in its long-standing dispute with TiVo, and this time he's taken a number of other measures that could cause EchoStar to finally rethink its workaround-litigate strategy. The big setback for EchoStar, however, is the one-two punch of $190 million in damages it's been ordered to pay TiVo and an order to disable the "infringing function" on all but 193,000 DVRs now in the hands of subscribers. The judge also found that EchoStar's recently-implemented workaround technology still violated the patent in question and, as a result, he's ordered EchoStar to inform the court before it decides to try its hand at another "design-around" of the infringing patent. For its part, TiVo says that it is "extremely gratified by the Court's well reasoned and thorough decision," while DISH / EchoStar would only say that it plans to appeal the court's decision and file a motion to stay the order with a federal appeals court.Read - The New York Times, "Court Awards TiVo $190 Million in EchoStar Patent Case"Read - TiVo Statement on U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Decision
Jury awards i4i $200 million in damages in Microsoft patent suit
It's not quite on the level of some of Microsoft's past patent showdowns, but a Texas federal jury found yesterday that the company should pay a still hefty $200 million in damages to Canadian software firm i4i Ltd for some supposed wrong doing. That company had alleged that Microsoft knowingly infringed on one of its patents in both Word and Vista, which apparently concerned "manipulating a document's content and architecture separately." For its part, Microsoft unsurprisingly begs to differ, and says that "the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid," adding that it will, of course, "ask the court to overturn the verdict."
CSIRO's patent lawsuits conclude with the final 13 companies settling
Looks like CSIRO's legal days are over -- for the moment, at least. Having already reached an agreement with HP, the Australian government-funded research firm announced this week that it's settled with the remaining 13 companies it sued for patent infringement, claiming it owned the rights to 802.11a/g. For those who haven't been keeping track at home, that includes Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, and 3Com. The details of any of the settlements are undisclosed, but as iTnews reports, it's expected CSIRO ended up with some substantial monies now that the dust has settled. Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark noted that it'll continue to "defend its intellectual property," so if you're a high profile tech company who creates WiFi-equipped gadgets and hasn't been served a lawsuit yet, we don't blame you for being a little nervous right now.
CSIRO settles patent lawsuit with HP, continues fight with everyone else
As anyone up on their patent fights these days is no doubt aware, Australia's CSIRO (or the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) has been engaged in a long-standing dispute with seemingly every company that makes use of WiFi in their products, and even the organization responsible for the 802.11 standard itself. Now, following a short lived victory against Buffalo, the group has reportedly reached a settlement in its lawsuit with HP, although all of the parties involved are unsurprisingly staying mum on any specifics for the time being. As Australia's Sydney Morning Herald notes, however, the settlement will no doubt give CSIRO a boost in confidence as it continues to challenge the remaining companies now entangled in lawsuits, which includes everyone from Microsoft to Dell to Nintendo, and free up a bit more time for the group to get back to creating even rounder objects and more stylish power-generating shirts.[Thanks, Greg]
Canon cleared to resume work on SED TV (now that the world doesn't care)
We're hard pressed to think of a display-related story that has lingered on longer than SED (well over four years at last count), and believe it or not, this still isn't apt to be the last you hear of it. If you'll recall, Canon recently declared victory after winning a lawsuit against Applied Nanotech that was previously holding it back from making progress, and now Applied Nanotech has waved the final white flag by giving up its right to appeal. Comically enough, it may actually be too late for Canon to even salvage the win, with president Tsuneji Uchida noting that "at times like this, new display products are not introduced much because people would laugh at them." Shh... nobody tell him the world's been laughing at SED for years.[Via OLED-Display]
Nintendo loses another round in controller patent lawsuit
Sony and Microsoft may have sorted things out with Anascape (otherwise known as the self-proclaimed ruler of all analog sticks) before things got too out of hand, but Nintendo has been busy fighting it out with the company in court, which resulted in them being ordered to dish out a hefty $21 million earlier this year -- a ruling that Nintendo naturally appealed. The big N is now facing another setback, however, as a US District Judge has rejected Nintendo's request for a new trial, which could potentially result in a ban on sales of Wii Classic Controllers, WaveBirds, and GameCube controllers (not to mention GameCube systems). To avoid that, Nintendo will apparently either have to post a bond or put royalties from the controllers into an escrow account. For its part, Nintendo seems to be remaining defiant, saying that it "was already planning to appeal this case to the Federal Circuit court," and that this new ruling "does not impact that decision." [Via Slashdot]
Apple settles visual voicemail lawsuit, licenses Klausner's patents
Klausner Technologies' litigious ways have already proven successful with Vonage, and it now looks like the company has got what it wanted out of Apple as well, which it had sued (along with AT&T) back in December over the iPhone's Visual Voicemail feature. As Reuters reports, both Apple and AT&T have agreed to license Klausner's patents relating to Visual Voicemail, and settle the lawsuit that was brought against them, although any other details are expectedly light at the moment. It seems that Klausner isn't quite content to sit on its patents just yet, however, with Reuters also reporting that the company is "in discussions" with both Comcast and Cablevision about them using the very same technology.[Via CNET News.com]
Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, others sued by Implicit Networks in patent brouhaha
Implicit Networks isn't exactly a household name, but it sure looks like its trying to make itself known with its latest lawsuit, which takes aim at no less than Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Sun and Real Networks (plus semiconductor company Raza Microelectronics). As you've no doubt surmised, the cause of all that litigiousness is some alleged patent infringement by those big name companies, and specifically a violation of Implicit's patent for "Methods and System for Demultiplexing a First Sequence of Packet Components to Identify Specific Components Wherein Subsequent Components are Processed without Re-identifying Components." Exactly what that is, we're not sure, but Implicit claims that each of the aforementioned companies violated it in their own particular way, and it's now demanding an unspecified amount of cash in return.
Apple facing patent lawsuit over iPhone keyboard
It may be a little slow out of the gate, but Florida-based SP Technologies is now taking aim at Apple over the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard, claiming that it infringes on a patent it has held since 2004. According to MacNN, that patent describes a "method and medium for computer readable keyboard display incapable of user termination," and the company is saying that Apple was "willful and deliberate" in its alleged infringement of it. As a result, SP Technologies is demanding that Apple pay "reasonable royalties" for each iPhone already sold, along with an injunction to prevent any further use of the allegedly offending intellectual property by Apple. No word on a next move but, as with most of these lawsuits, it'll be up to a federal court in Texas to sort things out.[Via TUAW]
Netflix, Blockbuster settle patent dispute
Like so many other hyped patent lawsuits before it, the Netflix / Blockbuster suit ended today with the relatively quiet announcement that both parties have settled out of court for undisclosed terms. You might remember the two rental giants taking each other to court last year -- Netflix claimed that Blockbuster had violated its business method patent for online rental services, and Blockbuster claimed that Netflix hadn't properly disclosed prior art in its patent applications. As always with these settlements, neither party is conceding anything, so it looks like Netflix gets to hold onto those patents, and Blockbuster gets to keep letting people rent movies online. At least the lawyers got something out of it.
Sirius, XM hit with second patent lawsuit in two months
Looks like the Sirius and XM legal teams are going to be spending a lot of time in good ol' Marshall, Texas this year. The two satellite radio giants are facing their second patent lawsuit in two months, this time over a 1995 patent owned by Finisar, a multinational networking company specializing in optical components. Finisar claims that it tried to license the patent -- which describes a method of regulating the organization of data during a satellite transmission -- to both XM and Sirius in 2005 but got the double cold shoulder. Aiming to correct that slight, the company is now asking the court for monetary damages as well as an injunction preventing XM and Sirius from using the offending tech. We'll be watching this one closely, since Finisar won more than $100 million from DirecTV last year over what appears to be the same patent -- that might put a dent in those merger plans, no?[Via OrbitCast]
Apple, SanDisk, and Samsung sued by Texas MP3
It's not like Apple, SanDisk, and Samsung haven't waded through their fair share of lawsuits in the past, and this most certainly isn't the first (nor the last, sadly) patent troll story you'll ever hear of, but a presumably off-kilter (and incredibly desperate) individual has filed a suit claiming that he masterminded the MP3 player. The current company, dubbed Texas MP3 Technologies, filed a currently ungranted patent application the very day before the suits were filed, but tried a little trickery by linking back to two previous patents -- one held by SigmaTel and the other by MPMan -- in order to force the giants to pay their dues. If you're suddenly scratching your noggin' over that last company, you'll probably recall that it actually was (loosely) deemed the first producer of an MP3 player, but considering that this latest company "shares a street address with one of its lawyers" in the patent lawsuit capital of the world Marshall, Texas, practically every ounce of credibility that might've been held just flew the coop. C'mon Texas, we all thought those "obvious patent laws" were going to be relaxed.[Via TechDirt]