TiVo wins $73 million patent suit

A federal jury awarded TiVo Inc. more than $73 million in damages Thursday in a patent infringement lawsuit against EchoStar Communications Inc.

TiVo had sought $87 million in damages from the Dish satellite-TV network in a patent dispute that TiVo lawyers said could be “life or death” for the company that sold the first box for pausing and rewinding live television.

Lawyers for EchoStar, Dish’s parent, had countered in their closing arguments that the company invented its own digital video recorder without TiVo technology. They said TiVo is using EchoStar as an excuse for its own failure to compete against other makers of set-top boxes. TiVo, based in Alviso, Calif., has lost nearly $650 million in its nine-year history.

•Lee Scott will take an unusually long one-month vacation in May from his job as chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., his first break of that length since taking over the helm of the world’s largest retailer in 2000, Wal-Mart said Thursday.

Scott, 57, will leave his two deputies in charge and remain in touch while he travels with his family and possibly goes fishing, spokeswoman Mona Williams said.

Williams said it was simply a vacation.

Asked if this was any indication that Scott might be preparing to leave as CEO, she said, “No, none whatsoever.”

•Ford Motor Co., which is closing plants and cutting jobs in an effort to improve results from its North American auto business, said Thursday that it will shutter assembly plants in Norfolk, Va., and St. Paul, Minn., in 2008.

The two plants employ about 4,300 hourly and salaried workers.

•Google Inc. released a calendar software system Thursday that can scan e-mails or Web pages for dates and times and, with one click, automatically log pending plans into an online calendar.

Google Calendar is the latest free tool introduced by the search and software giant to make organizing the desktop easier, and to draw more consumers to Google products. Although Google Calendar launched without advertising, the goal for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is to create more user dependency on its products which, in turn, creates opportunities for selling online ads.

Google’s calendar software allows users to maintain several kinds of calendars — for work, social life, children’s schedules — and it is based on open software that can be integrated with other software services and Web sites.