A judge in the Eastern District of Texas, United States District Court has opened the floodgates for patent infringement suits. This same judge has awarded damages to patent holders against Nintendo and other major companies in the several months.

TiVo has decided to take its chances in the courtroom and has filed a patent infringement suit against AT&T and Verizon over patents having to do with DVR functionality. The patents in question are numbers 6,233,389 B1 ("Multimedia Time Warping System"), 7,529,465 B2 ("System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams"), and 7,493,015 B1 ("Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System").

TiVo is seeking damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction. I have to wonder if TiVo prevails, how the verdict will change the way DVRs that customers of AT&T and Verizon are using operate.