EchoStar must disable DVRs, judge rules By Paul Bond
Fri Aug 18, 1:02 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A judge has ordered EchoStar to disable the digital video recorders used by several million subscribers to its Dish satellite TV service because they infringe on patents held by TiVo.
Thursday's ruling from U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, demands that within 30 days EchoStar must basically render useless all but 192,708 of the DVR units it has deployed.
The decision comes four months after a jury ruled that EchoStar should pay TiVo $74.9 million because it willfully infringed TiVo patents that allow for the digital storage of TV programming.
The judge also denied EchoStar's request that the injunction be stayed pending appeal, making it difficult for EchoStar to continue offering its subscribers' DVR functionality without striking a quick licensing deal with TiVo or another DVR maker.
While the injunction battle clearly was won by TiVo, the scrappy pioneer of the DVR industry also was handed a loss Thursday when Folsom ruled against its request that the jury award be tripled. The judge, however, ordered EchoStar to pay an additional $5.4 million in interest payments and $10.3 million in supplemental damages, bringing the amount EchoStar owes TiVo to nearly $90 million.
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060...hostar_dc_1
Fri Aug 18, 1:02 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A judge has ordered EchoStar to disable the digital video recorders used by several million subscribers to its Dish satellite TV service because they infringe on patents held by TiVo.
Thursday's ruling from U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, demands that within 30 days EchoStar must basically render useless all but 192,708 of the DVR units it has deployed.
The decision comes four months after a jury ruled that EchoStar should pay TiVo $74.9 million because it willfully infringed TiVo patents that allow for the digital storage of TV programming.
The judge also denied EchoStar's request that the injunction be stayed pending appeal, making it difficult for EchoStar to continue offering its subscribers' DVR functionality without striking a quick licensing deal with TiVo or another DVR maker.
While the injunction battle clearly was won by TiVo, the scrappy pioneer of the DVR industry also was handed a loss Thursday when Folsom ruled against its request that the jury award be tripled. The judge, however, ordered EchoStar to pay an additional $5.4 million in interest payments and $10.3 million in supplemental damages, bringing the amount EchoStar owes TiVo to nearly $90 million.
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060...hostar_dc_1
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
-
Re: NEWS: EchoStar must disable DVRs
Sat, August 19, 2006 - 11:26 AMFantastic. I hope they die a terrible death now.
Dish deliberately counted on TiVo being too poor to defend themselves in court. Dish units originally recorded by date and time. TiVo holds the patents on being able to record a show by name. When Dish came out with new units they knew they were deliberately crossing the line.
I'm actually shocked TiVo was able to defend itself. The fine is nothing to Dish. I doubt they've given up. It's a great feature and losing it means they are going to piss off a lot of customers. Customers who will switch to DirecTV which pretty much gives away TiVo units to new customers. -
-
Multimedia time warping system
Sun, August 20, 2006 - 8:07 PM -
-
Re: Multimedia time warping system
Sun, August 20, 2006 - 8:27 PMIMHO the dual tuner case is pretty weak. The Dish units have done this for some time. It was only their recent addition of the Season Pass equivalent which brought about the suit. Probably, the infringement was enough that they felt they could win in court.
Dual tuner recording is technically no different that someone glueing two VCRs into the same box. But there are many insignificant patents that are not only trivial but obvious that it has been clear that judges who decide on such matters have no clue what they are doing. Two cases of computer patents: The cursor, the thing lets me know where I'm typing and the sprite, like the mouse pointer that moves over the screen.
I'm generally of two minds when it comes to computer patents. 1, Most are utterly ridiculous or completely logical that no one needs someone else's example before they would start doing it on their own inititative. 2, if you truly innovate something, you should be able to benefit from it.
-
-
