Dish Network wins stay of contempt order in TiVo case

Denver Business Journal ^ | June 3, 2009 | unattributed

[smokingfrog]

Dish Network Corp. said Wednesday it won a temporary stay of a potentially costly contempt order issued against it in a long-running patent lawsuit with TiVo Inc.

The Englewood-based satellite broadcaster said a federal appeals court suspended a lower court’s contempt ruling that had levied $103 million in new damages against Dish Network and said it had 30 days to disable some functions of millions of digital video recorders used by its subscribers.

“We are pleased that the Federal Appeals Court in Washington temporarily stayed the district court’s order in the Tivo litigation,” said Dish Network in a written statement. “Dish Network customers can continue using their DVRs. We believe that we have strong grounds for appeal.”

A jury in an east Texas U.S. District Court found in 2006 that DVR software in Dish Network set-top boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo covering DVR playback features, like the ability to pause and rewind live programming while the DVR continues to record.

Dish Network reprogrammed millions of its DVRs after the verdict with a “workaround” it said removed any infringing software. But TiVo claimed Dish Network’s software “workaround” continued the old patent violation and succeeded Tuesday in winning the contempt verdict from the Texas court.

The contempt order upped the previous financial penalty to Dish Network by $103 million. The contempt order listed total damages and interest award due to TiVo at $192.7 million.

That total includes $105 million Dish Network already has paid. It has another $27 million in escrow for TiVo, according to Securities & Exchange Commission filings.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

A jury in an east Texas U.S. District Court found in 2006 that DVR software in Dish Network set-top boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo covering DVR playback features, like the ability to pause and rewind live programming while the DVR continues to record.

Instead of ripping off TiVO (Dish Network) or insisting that their customers use horribly inferior in-house DVRs (DirecTV),these satellite companies should license TiVO and give their customers a break. I never realized how well-designed TiVO's software was until I was forced to use DirecTV's HD DVR.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Is it just me or does it seem insane for them to be toying with a case that now is dangling a $190+ million price tag instead of just paying a few hundred thousand or couple million to properly license the technology.

[Yankee]

I love my two old RCA UltimateTV receivers on DirectTV. Both have had their hard drives upgraded and can now record 100+ hours.

They have picture-in-picture capability. That was not available on TIVO back in 2002. I don’t know whether it is now.

[catnipman]

Dish currently has almost 13,000,000 subscribers. Say 10,000,000 have PVRs. At $100.00 license fee per subscriber, that's a billion dollars. TiVo might also want some annual fees as well. Plus, TiVo doesn't even have to license the technology at all for any price, if they so choose. TiVo could theoretically force Dish to cripple their PVRs. Or maybe charge a couple of billion in lost licensing fees.

Charlie Ergen was always playing with fire trying to screw TiVo out of their patent rights. I'm not sure why he did that. Maybe that's just the kind of business man he is.

[Publius6961]

Don't get me started on The Dish. They revise their software continuously in the middle of the night, then when called, deny that anything changed. a five-yr-old could figure out things have changed.

And the other issue, related to HD. It requires a premium, and includes the local channels. I have not had a single week in the last three months when local channel HD reception was not interrupted. Try time shifting under those circumstances.

I'm just chomping at the bit to join the first class-action lawsuit to demand substantial refunds for non-performance and violation of contract.

[Newtoidaho]

When is Dish going to stop screwing with its customers and get CBS? Not that CBS is anything worth watching, other than for NFL games. Also, why does it not carry the MLB channel? Dish flat out lied to me when I was switching from DirecTV about the CBS issue.