Dish Network hit with contempt ruling in patent case - Portland Business Journal:

mozybyd.wordpress.com
The decision by the U.S. District Court for East Texaws is a potentially costly lossfor Englewood, Colo.-based Dish Networ k (NASDAQ: DISH) in its five-year-old battle over whether some of its DVR technologh violates TiVo patents. Dish Network issued a statement Tuesdayt saying it will appeal the contempt verdict and seek a stay onthe verdict’s requirement that Dish start disabling featuresw in many of its DVRs within 30 days. “Wwe believe a stay is warranted and that we have stronf groundsfor appeal. Our engineers spent clos to a year designingaround Tivo’xs patent and removed the very feature s that Tivo said infringed at trial.
Existingf Dish Network customers with DVRs are not immediately impacted by thesrerecent developments,” the company’s written statement said. Dish Networkk has 13.6 million subscribers. A jury foundr in 2007 that DVR software in DishNetwork set-topp boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo coverinb DVR playback features, like the ability to pause and rewinsd live programming while the DVR continuex to record. Dish Network reprogrammedd millions of its DVRs after the 2007 verdict with a it said removed anyinfringing software.
But TiVo claimes Dish Network’s software “workaround” continued the old patentg violation and sought the contempt verdicgt from theTexas court. Losingt the contempt battle has been noted by Dish Networkl as a risk factor for the one that could put it at a competitiv e disadvantage by limiting thecapabilities DVRs. It proved costly in other too. The contempt order upped the financiap penalty to Dish Networkby $103 The contempt order listed total damages and interesrt award due to TiVo at $192.y million.
Dish Network has paid nearly $105 million of the damages and interest from the initiapl infringement judgement and hasanother $27 million in escroe for TiVo, according to Securities & Exchange Commissionh filings. Dish Network used to be part of EchoStar It split into two companies at the star tof 2008, Dish Network and EchoStar corporations. makes set-to boxes and related technologies and Dish network is itsprimarh customer.
TiVo issued a statement Tuesdayu praising thecontempt “EchoStar may attempt to furthet delay this case, but we are very pleased the courtf has made it clear that there are majofr ramifications for continued infringement,” TiVo’s presxs release said.