TiVo shas said that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld its claim that rival EchoStar, operator of the DISH Network satellite TV service, was infringing on one of its PVR patents and must pay $74 million in damages, now $94 million with accrued interest.TiVo offered the following statement: “We are extremely pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously ruled in our favour in EchoStar’s appeal of the district court judgment of patent infringement. Full award of damages and that the injunction, which was stayed pending appeal, was ordered to be reinstated. Today’s ruling is confirmation of the value of TiVo’s IP portfolio, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. TiVo can now continue to focus on its goal to drive greater distribution in both its stand alone and mass distribution efforts.”
In response, DISH network issued the following statement: “The decision, however, will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar’s engineers have developed and deployed ‘next-generation’ DVR software to our customers’ DVRs. This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the Tivo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling.All DISH Network customers can continue to use their DVRs without any interruption or changes to the award-winning DVR features and services provided by DISH Network. We intend to appeal the Federal Circuit’s ruling affirming the $94 million jury verdict.”
