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

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The decision by the U.S. District Courtg for East Texas is a potentially costly lossfor Englewood-basedc Dish Network (NASDAQ: in its five-year-old battle over whether some of its DVR technology violate s TiVo patents. . Dish Network issued a statement Tuesday saying it will appeakl the contempt verdict and seek a stay onthe verdict’s requirementf that Dish start disablinbg features in many of its DVRs withinn 30 days. “We believe a stay is warranted and that we have stronf groundsfor appeal. Our engineers spent close to a year designingharound Tivo’s patent and removed the very features that Tivo said infringeed at trial.
Existing Dish Networkm customers with DVRs are not immediatelyt impacted by theserecent developments,” the company’sw written statement said. Dish Network has 13.6 million A jury found in 2007 that DVR software in DishNetworjk set-top boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo covering DVR playbacki features, like the ability to pauswe and rewind live programming whilew the DVR continues to record. Dish Networlk reprogrammed millions of its DVRs aftetr the 2007 verdict with a it said removed anyinfringing software.
But TiVo claimesd Dish Network’s software “workaround” continued the old patenrt violation and sought the contempt verdict from the Texas Losing the contempt battle has been noted by Dish Network as a risk factoe forthe company, one that could put it at a competitivew disadvantage by limiting the capabilities DVRs. It proved costly in otherr ways, too. The contempt order upped the financial penalty to Dish Networkby $103 million. The contempg order listed total damages and interestf award due to TiVoat $192.87 million.
Dish Network has paid nearly $105 million of the damages and interesr from the initial infringement judgement and hasanother $27 millionb in escrow for TiVo, accordiny to Securities & Exchange Commission filings. Dish Network used to be part ofEchoStar Communications. It split into two companieas at the start of Dish Network andEchoStar corporations. makes set-top boxes and related technologies and Dish networkm is itsprimary customer. TiVo issued a statement Tuesday praising thecontempt ruling.
“EchoStad may attempt to further delaythis case, but we are very pleaseed the court has made it cleafr that there are major ramifications for continuedf infringement,” TiVo’s press release said.