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 business partners and extended their agreement period a couple of years!