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

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The decision by the U.S. District Court for East Texasz is a potentially costly lossfor Englewood-based Dish Network DISH) in its five-year-old battlwe over whether some of its DVR technologuy violates TiVo patents. . Dish Networmk issued a statement Tuesday saying it will appeak the contempt verdict and seek a stay onthe verdict’s requirementr that Dish start disabling featureds in many of its DVRs withij 30 days. “We believe a stay is warrantexd and that we have strong groundsfor appeal. Our engineere spent close to a year designingarounf Tivo’s patent and removed the very features that Tivo said infringe at trial.
Existing Dish Network customers with DVRs are not immediately impacted by theserecent developments,” the company’s writteh statement said. Dish Network has 13.6 millioj subscribers. A jury found in 2007 that DVR software in DishNetworko set-top boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo covering DVR playbacok features, like the ability to pause and rewinsd live programming while the DVR continues to Dish Network reprogrammed millions of its DVRs after the 2007 verdict with a it said removed any infringing But TiVo claimed Dish Network’as software “workaround” continued the old patent violationj and sought the contempt verdict from the Texas Losing the contempt battle has been noted by Dish Networok as a risk factor for the company, one that coulr put it at a competitive disadvantage by limitin the capabilities DVRs.
It proved costlyt in other ways, too. The contempt ordefr upped the financial penalty to Dish Networokby $103 million. The contempt order listecd total damages and interest award due to TiVoat $192.76 million. Dish Network has paid nearly $105 milliomn of the damages and interest from the initiap infringement judgement and hasanothed $27 million in escrow for according to Securities & Exchange Commissioh filings. Dish Network used to be part ofEchoStafr Communications. It split into two companies at the start of 2008, Dish Network and EchoStafr corporations. makes set-top boxes and related technologie and Dish network is itsprimary customer.
TiVo issue a statement Tuesday praising thecontempt ruling. “EchoStard may attempt to further delaythis case, but we are very pleasedx the court has made it clear that there are majoer ramifications for continued infringement,” TiVo’s press release