A Texas court has lifted the stay placed on EchoStar’s long-running patent infringement suit against TiVo, reopening the long running case dating back to 2005 that sparked a series of claim and counterclaim.
At issue is the digital video recorder technology that allows viewers to pause, rewind and fast-forward live television. The dispute centres on whether EchoStar, at the time part of the DBS satellite network and spun off in 2008, was in contempt of a judge’s order by using a technical workaround to avoid patent infringement. In 2006 EchoStar and DISH had been found guilty by a jury of infringing TiVo’s patents when they began production of their own DVR product.
It emerged that EchoStar had agreed to reduce down its four patent claims to one, a point on which TiVo accused its rival of changing its position on the terms of the claim. “As a result of the proceedings in the USPTO and District Court to date, EchoStar’s suit against TiVo has been narrowed to only the ‘804 patent and TiVo remains confident that TiVo does not infringe any of the remaining claims at issue,” the company said.
In a short statement DISH Network said: “We are pleased that the court granted our motion to lift the stay in our patent infringement action against TiVo. The patent in this case withstood two re-exam petitions by TiVo seeking to invalidate it. We look forward to the trial.”
