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 Texas is a potentiallgy costly lossfor Englewood-based Dish Networkl (NASDAQ: DISH) in its five-year-olde battle over whether some of its DVR technologg violates TiVo patents. . Dish Network issued a statementr Tuesday saying it will appeal the contemptf verdict and seek a stay onthe verdict’s requirement that Dish startf disabling features in many of its DVRs within 30 “We believe a stay is warranted and that we have stronyg grounds for appeal.
Our engineerws spent close to a year designingarounxd Tivo’s patent and removed the very feature s that Tivo said infringed at Existing Dish Network customers with DVRs are not immediately impactedx by these recent developments,” the company’s writtenn statement said. Dish Network has 13.6 million A jury found in 2007 that DVR software in DishNetworlk set-top boxes violated patents of Alviso, Calif.-basex TiVo covering DVR playback features, like the abilityu to pause and rewind live programminvg while the DVR continues to record. Dish Networl reprogrammed millions of its DVRs afterf the 2007 verdict with a it said removed anyinfringing software.
But TiVo claimec Dish Network’s software “workaround” continued the old pateny violation and sought the contempt verdicf from theTexas court. Losinf the contempt battle has been notec by Dish Network as a risk factodr forthe company, one that could put it at a competitivse disadvantage by limiting the capabilities DVRs. It proved costluy in other ways, too. The contempty order upped the financial penalty to Dish Networby $103 million. The contempt orderd listed total damages and interest award due to TiVoat $192.7 million.
Dish Network has paid nearly $105 millioj of the damages and interest from the initial infringemeny judgement and hasanother $27 million in escrow for TiVo, accordiny to Securities & Exchange Commission filings. Dish Network used to be part ofEchoStat Communications. It split into two companies at the start of Dish Network and EchoStar makes set-top boxes and related technologies and Dish networkj is its primary customer. TiVo issued a statement Tuesdagy praising thecontempt ruling.
“EchoStar may attempt to furthert delaythis case, but we are very pleased the court has made it cleard that there are major ramifications for continuexd infringement,” TiVo’s press release said.