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Tivo has set off quite a debate on Slashdot with the news that it is suing EchoStar for patent infringement.

The suit, filed in federal district court in Texas, alleges that EchoStar's DVR infringes TiVo's "Time Warp" patent, which includes the method used to allow viewers to record one program while watching another and the storage format that supports advanced "TrickPlay" capabilities such as pausing live television, rewinding and slow motion.

The article linked is very light on the details of the infringement and the key question is if TiVo is trying to club others with a fairly obvious patent on the idea of timeshifting or if the infringement is in the actual implementation used by EchoStar. If you read the patents in question, they are focused on a specific implementation of solving this timeshifting problem so as long as you solve the problem differently from TiVo you'd be ok.

Its a pity that a lot of the comments modded up above 3 are mostly ill-informed flames about the inadequacies of the US Patent Office while actually informative comments are mostly stuck below that threshold.

Full disclosure: I do own TIVO stock.

Bet you make more than these pro-athletes. Soccer America is listing the salaries of MLS players circulated by the player's union. While similar figures have been available in other sports, this is the first time American soccer fans are seeing them. Previously, the players were organized in an association and were suing the league over its single-entity structure wherein the league, not teams, owned a player's contract.

On the bottom end of the scale, more than 80 players earn less than \$50,000 in salary, including Los Angles forward Carlos Ruiz.

NOTE: there are roughly 220 players in MLS.

A sad truth in the States are the paltry, at least compared to NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL players, salaries paid to MLS players. While I'm not advocating multi-million dollar salaries, they can be very low when you factor in that the average career of a pro-soccer player is 15-20 years at the most. Sure, the very talented players can always go to Europe to make more money but a lot of players for one reason or another, talent/qualifications/etc, will spend their entire careers at home.