Dish Network and TiVo have been battling in court since 2004 over Dish's alleged infringement of TiVo's recording-while-watching patent, but even though TiVo keeps winning, Dish won't give up. The latest development: a Federal Circuit court ruled against Dish's appeal to get another hearing at the Supreme Court, so Dish plans to appeal that ruling as well.
TiVo won an initial case in 2004 where Dish (then Echostar) was told to
pay about $74 million to TiVo for infringing on TiVo's patent with its
Dish Network DVR. Dish hasn't succeeded in changing that early
decision, but wants to reinforce to its subscribers that their current
DVRs are not illegal, and they can rest easy.
The company said in a 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.”
That's nice, but at some point Dish will have to pay up to TiVO. Until
then, watch for more appeals and rejections. —Rachel Rosmarin
DISHNetwork
