The Hurt Keeps Coming: Dish And EchoStar Ordered To Pay TiVo Another $200 Million
September 4, 2009 ·Filed Under Technology News
The battle within Dish and TiVo rages on. As reported by Bloomberg, a judge has ruled that Dish and EchoStar must pay TiVo around $200 million for continuing to supply DVR service to its customers after being told to stop considering it was violating TiVo’s patents. Dish and EchoStar plan to appeal the ruling.
The new ruling brings Dish and EchoStar’s total payments to TiVo to around $400 million in damages and other fees after a five year legal battle. In that latest round, Dish and EchoStar say they tried to work around TiVo’s patents, but a judge ruled that they had folded to do so. The $200 million figure is based on a $2.25 per month royalty for every Dish DVR user, extending from April 2008, when an appeals court reaffirmed TiVo’s patent, to July
It could have been worse. TiVo was looking for nearly $1 billion — or all of Dish’s DVR profits — as it accused Dish and EchoStar of willingly infringing on its patent. The judge ruled that the infringement had been unwilling (in other words, the companies had tried to work around the patent but folded to do so), hence the smaller penalty.
None of that bodes well for AT&T and Verizon, who are plus being sued by Tivo for infringing on its “date Warping” patent.
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