Dish Network lost its long standing battle with TiVo recently, over patent infringement in regards to its DVR technology.  Because of the recent judgment, Dish not only has to pay some $104 million in damages to the DVR pioneer, but also stop using a key DVR technology that’s become vital to its satellite service.

The court’s recent decision not to review an appellate court’s ruling- follows years of legal wrangling over TiVo’s "Time Warp" software that allows users to record one television program while watching another via a DVR, according to Yahoo News.  "Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will pay TiVo approximately $104 million," Dish said in a statement. "The money is in an escrow account and will be released to TiVo in the next few days."

While that’s bad news for Dish, the bigger problem lies in the fact that a signed injunction required Dish to “turn off” its DVRs.  While this sounds a bit harsh, Dish obviously thought so too, and didn’t follow the rules of the injunction.  Instead, Dish used a “work-around” to make its DVRs work without using any of TiVo’s technology.  A further court hearing will determine if Dish owes even more in damages because of this.  "Judge Folsom has to determine how to treat these workarounds," said Jand Partners analyst Murray Arenson. "Today’s ruling doesn’t change anything — the bigger issue is this injunction. That determines whether EchoStar is backed into a corner or not."

Dish obviously disagreed with the ruling in the first place stating; "We believe that the design-around does not infringe TiVo’s patent and that TiVo’s pending motion for contempt should be denied."  I would think no judge would feel right denying Dish the right to provide DVR service that has become a mainstay in satellite programming for some time now.  Taking it away now would be more than devastating to Dish customers. 

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Entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 10:21 pm under Technology.

Read more entries by Justin Montgomery.
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