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DISH hit with $104m TiVo damages bill |
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| Chris Forrester, on 07-10-2008 |
 Charlie Ergen’s DISH Network has finally lost its myriad of patent appeals against TiVo, and has to stump up a thumping $104m in damages. The verdict in the extremely long-running case was given back in April 2006 but has been back and forth in various appeal courts ever since, finally being listed – and denied a further hearing - by the US Supreme Court on Oct 6.
"Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will pay TiVo
approximately $104 million ($74 million, the amount the jury awarded in
2006 plus interest). The money is in an escrow account and will be
released to TiVo in the next few days," Dish said in a statement.
However, as if to stress its belief its statement also repeated the
DISH claim that its current DVR devices no longer violate TiVo’s
patents – a claim rejected by TiVo which claims there are continued
violations.
“The Supreme Court's decision, however, does not impact our software
design-around, which has been placed in DISH DVRs subject to the
district court's injunction, and our customers can continue using their
DISH DVRs. We believe that the design-around does not infringe Tivo's
patent and that Tivo's pending motion for contempt should be denied. We
look forward to that ruling in the near future,” said DISH.
In other words litigation between the two will almost certainly
continue. In a statement, TiVo said it's looking forward to getting its
hands on the cash awarded by the US District Court handling the case.
Those damages would cover a two-year period. Also, TiVo said it remains
"confident that the District Court will enforce the injunction and
award further damages from EchoStar's continued infringement of our
Time Warp patent."
TiVo’s share price immediately responded and was one of the very few
stocks that showed any positive gain, up 2% on Monday, although it fell
back 3% on Oct 7 to around $6.16 and is still stubbornly down when
measured against its $9 price back in May. TiVo’s over-arching problem
is that it is still losing money, after 10 years of being in the
market. In August the company issued a fresh guidance to Wall Street,
saying it expected to lose a further $7m-$9m during this current
quarter year.
© Rapid TV News 2008
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