TiVo was granted its summary judgment by U.S. Dist. Court, Boston, in its PVR patent dispute with Pause Technology (CED Feb 12 p5) because the court found TiVo had “the better argument with respect to at least 2 disputed claim terms,” a text of the decision said.

TiVo won a favorable summary judgment ruling in a patent infringement suit filed in 2001 by Pause Technology. The ruling that TiVo PVRs don’t infringe on Pause’s patent was entered by U.S. Dist. Court Judge Patti Saris in Boston. TiVo said it will file a motion asking that the court declare the dispute an “exceptional” case, which would require Pause to repay TiVo’s

The CBS telecast of the Super Bowl halftime show in which singer Justin Timberlake tore off part of Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her breast, drew “the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured,” TiVo said Mon. TiVo, citing an analysis of “aggregated data” from a sample of 20,000 households, said viewership of the halftime incident jumped 180% “as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo’s unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again.” The incident drew protests from parent’s group and prompted FCC Chmn. to promise a quick investigation. Powell called it “a classless, crass and deplorable stunt.”

The first hardware using Digital Interactive Systems Corp. (DISC) technology, which allows gamers to play PC games on their TVs without the need for a compute, as expected was unveiled by Apex Digital and Alienware at CES late last week. Apex’s hardware, scheduled to ship in March, is the ApeXtreme DVD player/DISCover Game Console, while Alienware’s is the Media Center PC and DISCover Game Console.

EchoStar doesn’t believe it infringed any TiVo patents, a spokesman said after TiVo said Mon. it had filed suit against EchoStar charging it had violated the “Time Warp” patent that allows users to pause live TV. The spokesman didn’t say whether EchoStar planned to file a countersuit, but said the company “intend[s] to defend vigorously against the lawsuit.”

EchoStar doesn’t believe it infringed on any TiVo patents, a spokesman said after TiVo said Mon. had filed suit against EchoStar charging it had violated the “Time Warp” patent that allows users to pause live TV (CD Jan 6 p8). The spokesman didn’t say whether EchoStar planned to file a countersuit, but said the company “intend[s] to defend vigorously against the lawsuit.” Separately, An EchoStar spokesman confirmed reports that the company had sued Viacom in U.S. Dist. Court, San Francisco, over CBS rebroadcast rights, including coverage of the Super Bowl Feb. 1. But he said the companies had reached a temporary agreement to continue negotiations through next week. EchoStar said Viacom had conditioned the agreement on EchoStar’s carriage of additional programming. “We consider that to be TV extortion, saying we [can’t run] the Super Bowl… unless we agree to carry other channels. We think that’s part of the public airwaves at this point,” the spokesman said. The company is pleased that an agreement was reached for additional negotiation time, he said: “It should allow us to hold meaningful conversations.” An industry official said it was unlikely EchoStar timed the filing of its lawsuit to coincide with DirecTV’s announcement that it had reached an agreement with CBS (CD Jan 8 p10).

RealNetworks said it was rolling out RealPlayer 10 software that features a multichannel codec and couples support for MPEG-4 compression with the national debut of an online music store.

TiVo said it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against EchoStar Mon., alleging the latter had violated its “Time Warp” patent. The patent covers TiVo technology for recording a programing during playback of another, and certain technologies applicable to live TV -- pausing, fast- forwarding, rewinding, etc. TiVo said the suit was filed in a U.S. Dist. Court in Tex. that it didn’t identify. “We've invested in building a comprehensive patent portfolio to protect our intellectual property and… we will be aggressive in protecting those assets,” TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay said.

Charter announced an agreement to buy Explorer 8000 digital set-top boxes from Scientific-Atlanta. Charter declined to say how many boxes it was buying or to disclose terms. Charter Dir.- Mktg. for New Products Page Shaper said the S-A Explorer 8000 would enable the rollout of Charter digital video recording (DVR) service in the L.A. area, the first in a series of deployments throughout the country. Shaper said the Explorer 8000 was equipped with a hard drive that would store and play back up to 50 hours of programs. Charter DVR provides picture-in-picture capability and enables customers to record 2 different channels simultaneously while viewing a previously recorded program. Consumers also can stop, rewind and pause a show in progress.

Charter announced an agreement to buy Explorer 8000 digital set-top boxes from Scientific-Atlanta. Charter declined to say how many boxes it was buying or to disclose terms. Charter Dir.-Mktg. for New Products Page Shaper said the S-A Explorer 8000 would enable the rollout of Charter digital video recording (DVR) service in the L.A. area, the first in a series of deployments throughout the country. Shaper said the Explorer 8000 was equipped with a hard drive that would store and play back up to 50 hours of programs. Charter DVR provides picture-in-picture capability and enables customers to record 2 different channels simultaneously while viewing a previously recorded program. Consumers also can stop, rewind and pause a show in progress.