VIZIO sure ends up in a whole lot of legal battles, but one way or another, it always seems to find its way out in the long run. Such is the case once again today, as the current LCD TV king has apparently said all the right things to Sony. If you'll recall, Sony (along with a slew of others) filed suit against Vizio awhile back over patent licensing concerns, but now it seems the two have reached a mutual agreement to use each other's technologies without bickering over who owns what. The release on the matter states that Sony "has become a licensee under VIZIO's patent portfolio," and that "VIZIO now is a licensee under Sony's color television patent portfolio." Who knows how much under-the-table cash and shaky promises had to be passed along in order to make everyone happy, but hey, a problem solved is a problem solved.

[Image courtesy of TooMuchNick / WireImage]

Update: Sony's response to all of this is after the break, courtesy of a company spokesperson who pinged us directly.

Based on what we're hearing, a slate of soon-to-be-proposed FCC rules may stop the likes of Comcast from discriminating against P2P applications on their networks, and AT&T sure will have a tougher time justifying why it won't let the iPhone's version of SlingPlayer run on 3G while giving WinMo and BlackBerry users all the bandwidth they can handle. Julius Genachowski, the new chairman of the entity, is slated to discuss the new rules on Monday, though he isn't expected to dig too deep into the minutiae. Essentially, the guidelines will "prevent wireless companies from blocking internet applications and prevent them from discriminating (or acting as gatekeepers) [against] web content and services." We know what you're thinking: "Huzzah!" And in general, that's probably the right reaction to have as a consumer, but one has to wonder how network quality for all will be affected if everyone is cut loose to, well, cut loose. Oh, and if this forces telecoms to deploy more cell sites to handle the influx in traffic, you can rest assured that the bill will be passed on to you. Ain't nuthin' free, kids.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Okay, so it's not the cool billion dollars in damages we'd heard TiVo was asking for, but $200 million ain't chump change if you're broke, you know? That's the amount in contempt damages TiVo will get if EchoStar loses its upcoming appeal in the endless time warp patent case, bringing the total amount of money on the table to nearly $400 million. As usual, that means virtually nothing for the average Dish or TiVo customer, but at least the lawyers involved can all buy new Audis for the winter now.

When it rains it pours -- right on the heels of the punishing blow dealt to RealDVD, the money-laden Kaleidescape crowd suffered its own setback at the hands of the law. You just know that the DVD CCA (Copy Control Association) appealed the 2007 ruling that allowed Kaleidescape owners to rip DVDs to their media servers, and yesterday a California Appeals Court overturned that ruling. Next stop -- the Santa Clara Superior Court, which could place an injunction on Kaleidescape if the appeal is upheld. It's not over yet, but we're prepping the soundboard with ominous music, boos and noisy hand-wringing. Whatever (and whenever) the outcome, we can only hope that Blu-ray's Managed Copy comes to the scene sooner rather than later and settles this issue for our beloved HD content

Something tells us Kaleidescape has a man (or woman, to be fair) on the inside, else United States District Court Judge Marilyn Patel is just downright trifilin'. In every visible way, RealNetworks' proposed RealDVD player was exactly what Kaleidescape was, but for people with annual salaries far less than $9,854,392,220. Regardless of our opinion, a preliminary injunction has just been passed down from The Almighty in the robe, which blocks the sale of the RealDVD software here in the US. The six major movie studies filed the suit last September, alleging that it "illegally violated their right to restrict the use of their movies in digital form." Evidently those that matter agree. A RealNetworks spokesperson took the time to vent their feelings on the whole ordeal, and since we know you're curious, we've pasted it below for your convenience.

We are disappointed that a preliminary injunction has been placed on the sale of RealDVD. We have just received the Judge's detailed ruling and are reviewing it. After we have done so fully, we'll determine our course of action and will have more to say at that time.

[Via Electronista]

Remember when we thought that those $90 million and $190 million judgments in the endless TiVo / EchoStar case were big noise? Yeah, they were apparently pocket change: according to documents recently filed with the court, TiVo's asking for nearly a billion dollars in contempt sanctions against EchoStar. Unfortunately, the original document in which TiVo made the request was filed under seal because it contains confidential information, but it appears that TiVo's none too pleased that EchoStar violated the permanent injunction that ordered it to disable some 193,000 DVRs in the wild, and it's looking for some payback. For its part, EchoStar says that it doesn't have to comply with the court's order because the injunction was put on hold pending appeal -- an argument that appears on the surface to make perfect sense, but since we can't read TiVo's motion we can't say for sure what's going on, and there's always a chance the company's just playing hardball in order to force a late settlement. Given the rocky history of this endless case, we doubt that's likely, but one thing's for certain: all these lawyers are eating well tonight.

We just spent some time talking to Sharp's reps about that ITC ban on its LCD panels, and while they certainly didn't sound happy about the ruling, they made it clear that it shouldn't have too much of an effect on US consumers -- Aquos TVs and Sharp professional LCD displays currently on shelves are fine to be sold, and updated models have been hitting the channel as of last month. As you'd expect, the new displays have been re-engineered to workaround the Samsung patent in question, but here's where it gets confusing: the basic model numbers haven't changed. Instead, the new units have an "N" at the end, so a TV like the Aquos LC52-E77U will now be labeled LC52-E77UN. Sharp says the updated models have exactly the same specs as the outgoing ones, but we're waiting on a detailed list of spec changes -- or better, a side-by-side comparison -- so we can decide whether or not the HDTV equivalents of a pre-CBS Fender are floating around out there.

Update: Sharp hit us back with some revised information, so we've changed the post slightly.

Chalk up another huge win for Samsung in its long-running patent dispute with Sharp: the US International Trade Commission has just issued a ruling banning importation of Sharp LCD panels that infringe one of Samsung's viewing-angle patents. As you might imagine, the ban covers a wide swath of Sharp's consumer products, including the Aquos TV line, but it's not clear on how it'll affect other companies that use Sharp panels -- this ruling could potentially have a huge impact on the entire tech market. On the other hand, we'd bet that Sharp's lawyers are furiously putting together a request to have the ban delayed while an appeal is sorted out, so this is far from over -- in fact, we'd say the real fireworks are just beginning.

When it comes to Blu-ray deck price decreases, we'll take whatever we can get -- especially with the naysaying that seems to follow the format these days. So file the fact that Zoran and DTS have put their legal disputes behind them, and Zoran plans to have single-chip solutions for Blu-ray decoding with support for DTS' codecs shipping by the end of the year under "more competition has to be good." Zoran filed suit against DTS back in October, claiming that the company wasn't being fair in its codec licensing terms; not surprisingly, Zoran wasn't granted a license. But the suits ironed it all out, and after paying out a settlement that will have a "modestly positive" impact on DTS' financials, Zoran is the latest licensee to the DTS codecs.

It's been a long, messy road, but now that TiVo's beaten a victory out of EchoStar in that seemingly-endless DVR patent lawsuit it sounds like the company is trying to exert some muscle -- it's already in talks to bring its service to Time Warner Cable, and sources have told Bloomberg the ultimate plan is to eventually collect royalties from every pay-TV provider in the US. That might sound bullying and even a little trollish, but keep in mind these patents have withstood pretty much every legal challenge EchoStar could throw at them, so TiVo's operating from a position of some certainty here -- especially since it's got license agreements with huge players like Comcast and DirecTV to use as leverage in negotiations as well. Of course, none of this solves any of TiVo's actual problems with its products, and the company's topsy-turvy balance sheet has some analysts thinking its ripe for a buyout by one of the bigs, so things could change dramatically at any minute, but for right now it sounds like your chances of getting the TiVo interface on your cable or satellite company DVR just went up, and that's almost certainly a good thing.

It's the case that never ends -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a temporary delay of the injunction and fine handed down yesterday in the EchoStar / TiVo lawsuit while it considers an appeal, meaning that DISH owners with older DVRs won't have to worry about losing their pause-and-rewind functionality at least for now. That pretty much means we're back in stasis with this one, with even more delay to come if the appeal is granted. That's cool, we needed a nap anyway.

Just when it looked like the long-running patent dispute was tipping Vizio's way, the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of Funai, issuing an order to block imports of Vizio HDTVs. According to Bloomberg the ban is still eligible to be reviewed by President Obama while the patent case itself is still being reviewed by an appeals court, but if Vizio wants to keep its shipments flowing it will have to post a bond of $2.50 per television. We've put a call in to Vizio to find out what this means for its immediate future -- and that sweet LED backlit display from CES -- and confirmed that while this order goes into effect immediately, you should still be able to find sets on shelves and they will continue to do business as usual during the presidential review period, but feel free to read its press release in response after the break for more details.

Wondering why Engadget still has a permanent ban on covering Monster Cable products, even after the company tried to make amends for its frivolous lawsuit and strong-arm settlement offer against Monster Mini Golf? Well, it's because the company hasn't actually changed its ways -- not only did we just catch them trying to peddle their overpriced snakeoil cables using rigged displays for the third time, Noel Lee's lawyers have dusted themselves off and filed a lawsuit against Monster Transmission, a performance auto supplier in Florida. Yes, Monster Cable is suing an American automotive manufacturing company in the middle of a recession. Brilliant PR move, don't you think? So yeah, the ban stands -- and we'd recommend steering your friends to any number of cable brands that are just as good, much cheaper, and far less burdened with the stink of desperation than any of Monster's products.

Update: Monster Cable's sending out a statement saying "Monster does not have an issue with Monster Transmission" and that the "case was filed last year, before the Monster Mini Golf matter was settled" but it sounds to us like they're playing fast and loose with their timeline to distract people -- we just spoke to Achilles Thomas, one of the owners of Monster Transmission, and he said the initial lawsuit was filed between October and November of 2008 and hasn't come close to settling, even though the Mini Golf case settled in January. Naughty, naughty.

Read - Audioholics post on the lawsuit
Read - Monster Transmissions

Whether one sides with the California Energy Commision's idea of restricting sales of the most power hungry displays on the market or with the CEA and think this is as silly as shunning black auto paint, there's plenty more to learn about the two tiered system that could go into effect January 1, 2011. A vote isn't slated until the summer so you've got plenty of time to review the formulas and do the math. Hopefully plasma manufacturers have been working on those super thin eco designs, they may be needed on store shelves sooner than previously expected.

[Via Wired]