Court orders Dish to pay $103 million to TiVo
A federal court has awarded TiVo $103 million plus interest in its long-running patent dispute with EchoStar Communications and ordered EchoStar to disable infringing features found on its subscribers' digital video recorders.
U.S. District Judge David Folsom on Tuesday also found EchoStar, which is now part of Dish Network, in contempt of court for violating a permanent injunction by reprogramming millions of DVRs with a new "workaround."
"The harm caused to TiVo by EchoStar's contempt is substantial," Folsom wrote. "EchoStar has gained millions of customers since this court's injunction was issued, customers that are now potentially unreachable by TiVo."
Englewood, Colo.-based Dish, which has roughly 13.6 million subscribers, said in a statement it would appeal the contempt ruling and file a motion to stay an order that requires it to disable the disputed DVR features within 30 days.
"Our engineers spent close to a year designing around TiVo's patent and removed the very features that TiVo said infringed at trial," the company said. "Existing Dish Network customers with DVRs are not immediately impacted by these recent developments."
The Alviso, Calif.-based maker of set-top boxes applauded the decision.
"We are extremely gratified by the court's well reasoned and thorough decision, in which it rejected EchoStar's attempted workaround claim regarding the TiVo patent, found EchoStar to be in contempt of court, and ordered the permanent injunction fully enforced," TiVo said in a statement. "EchoStar may attempt to further delay this case but we are very pleased the court has made it clear that there are major ramifications for continued infringement."
In after-hours trading, shares of TiVo rose $2.53, or 36 percent, to $9.51, while shares of Dish fell $1.19, or 6.9 percent, to $16.05.
TiVo first sued EchoStar in 2004 for violating a patent on a "multimedia time-warping system," which involved recording a program on one channel while watching another.
A jury in 2006 found that Dish Network's DVRs infringed upon a patent held by TiVo and ordered it to pay TiVo $73.9 million in damages. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling in January 2008, as did a second U.S. appeals court in April 2008.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
You do not "have to" use proprietary DVRs in any way, shape or form. You can use Tivo with IR blasters with Dish, DirecTV or any other non-DVR STBs from the cable company. If you want two tuners, you need a dual tuner box or 2 boxes. My cousin has this setup in his home with Dish and multiple Tivos. I chose the Dish HD DVR because it is less expensive, not more, and for me, a better option.
Get your facts straight, unless, of course, your goal is to not tell the truth, but to spread FUD for Tivo, in which case, move along.
I am a Dish Network customer, with a DVR (which I bought outright), and I pay no fees (monthly or otherwise) for the DVR service. Unlike Tivo, which has a service fee of $12.95 per month. In addition, at this moment I forgot how much I paid for my DVR when I bought it outright (as it was a few years back), but I think it was right around the $149.99 price Tivo is asking for their Dual Tuner model which is comparable to my Dish Network DVR (and when I bought my DVR, it was not under any promotion or anything like that).
Now I can not speak for DirectTV or Cable Company's (like Comcast), but for me, Dish Network interface beats the crap out of Tivo's (I have used both since my sister has Tivo with her cable it DC). In addition, I would much rather use a device that is integrated with my Satellite / Cable so I do not have to deal with the hassle of getting two devices working together (I do enough of this in my day job as a Systems Administrator).
Also, last time I checked, there were other DVR's that used IR blasters to control the devices, its just not made by Tivo.
I just got a new 80hr HD DVR from DirectTV for FREE, plus monthly service of $9.99/mth.
Tivo's cheapest HD DVR is $299.99 plus monthly service of $12.95/mth. AND even if I wanted this more expensive option, the Tivo states this HD DVR does not support satellite programming anyways!
I'm all for competition, and I think Tivo made everyone else step up their game, but please get your facts straight or buy a new calculator before you go cheerleading for TIVO's price advantage.
Charlie Ergen has always been feisty. He likes to fight everything in court, right or wrong. :)
Why is it always whatever decisions corporations can make can have a direct hurt on certain amount of people. Are the laws to attack the people, is the system no longer working?
is that why crime has skyrocketed? Is that why more and more people are pirating?
If we can't use DVR because of patents then we have gone backwards from society, no wonder why America will perish in my predictions because we are going backwards because of patent restrictions. The thing is if you believe in the 4th dimension and spiritual stuff, you will find out that all inventions are already invented but was rediscovered here, and so if people knew the truth they would end the patent system for good.
if you believe in god, what would you do if god was like us? Charged and put license restrictions on everything, we would be doomed and suffer for eternity because of god supporting money, Money is the root of all evil, because money entices greed and separates the poor from the more fortionate.
Money separates us all and divides us all and it isn't always love of money, it is money itself. Jesus was also against money and they tortured and killed him, should the world start forgetting about god and then start taxing and charging the hell out of each other, god gave the earth and universe to us even though we broke his rule of not eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and yet for us one law broken means up to 5 years in prison, somethings wrong here.
We broke 1 of gods laws then put people in prison over thousands to millions of stupid and BS laws.
Humans have become stupefied and brainwashed, and now they know nothing except whats in front of them and whats in front of them in enslavement and lack of competition. If I can't sell a better quality DVR because it would violate Tivos patents (they took Linux code so I accuse them of the same thing Dish is doing to Tivo, I'm gonna sue Tivo for using Linux without permission), then this stifles innovation and makes TV a pain again where we can't enjoy it because we have to use the bathroom or take another break, husbands will just watch TV all day and say he can't take breaks because theres no pause on live tv :|
I am mad if Tivo screws me over I'm thinking about suing them for my mental destruction over forcing myself to record on loads of DVDs parts of shows in case I need to use the bathroom, or need something to eat, this puts us back into the 60's. WE ARE GOING BACKWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are becoming more primitive because of the law, I always told people the law is too corrupt and should be no more but people don't want to listen to me or change the system to be more balenced.
I can imagine more people are going onto filesharing networks to download TV Shows because you can store, pause TV, with filesharing or Netflix you can pause Movies and shows and it isn't a DVR. I have a feeling piracy will rise even higher after this, this is Hollywoods and Tivos on fault for stifling innovation. If the MPAA wants to sue somebody sue Tivo for making piracy a more popular alternative to the DVR.
I can clearly see the benefit why people like to pirate because they actually have the content in their computers and can pause, play Live TV, and people will know ahead of time if the show was canceled then people will know they won't like the end but decided to watch the show anyways.
I noticed piracy is becoming a more better alternative and now with this incident piracy is just going to rise more and more because of the failure of the entertainment department and the failure in the justice system.
America is now full of idiots that will kill themselves while big brainwashing brother hides out in the military bunkers.
A court actually upheld this crap?
VCR's have been doing it for many years.
Patent reform now!
TiVo didn't patent the DVR. They patented something called a media switch which, in effect, allows DVR functionality on inexpensive hardware. Without infringing on this patent, DISH would have had to create a very powerful and expensive box to do what their DVR does - record multiple shows (including HD streams), allow users to record and watch different shows at same time, etc.
You won't see TiVo suing Microsoft for the DVR functionality in Windows computers because they are powerful (and expensive) enough to perform these functions without the media switch.
So for all those that think this is a VCR or this is patent abuse, take a minute to educate yourself on what the case is about. Without stealing TiVo's technology, DISH would have had to build a box that cost, say $800 instead of $200. And if that was the case, they couldn't have afforded to offer these boxes for free with a multi-year service commitment.
If you don't think a patent should be issued for an invention that allows a $200 device to do the work of an $800 device, then how about just doing away with the patent system altogether?
And for the guy that claims his DISH DVR is free, it's probably part of a bundled pricing. You're paying for it, they just aren't showing you the itemized pricing for the DVR service.
I would like to see you prove otherwise.
If I bought this PC today, I could get the whole thing, including the card, for the same price, I could even upgrade the hard drive to hold more video than anything being marketed.
TiVos tech is outdated by a long shot. Instead of sueing to keep the old stuff in place, it's about time they did a little innovation, lower the price or make it worth the price.
The wave of the future for entertainment is either an entertainment PC or a video game console like the Xbox 360 that does it all. Personally, I would rather have the Xbox like device than a full blown space consuming PC. Which ever one ends up being it, Tivo isn't it.
Robert
It's tough to have a successful business model when a company steals your technology so they can give the business away for free, ties you up in court for 6 years and shows others they might as well steal instead of pay too. TiVo's not going anywhere now, they're just finally going to collect on what was rightfully theirs.
If that Xbox is going to be the one entertainment device in your living room, it will need cable cards (unless all the TV/cable networks go IPTV) and DVR capabilities. And they'll be paying TiVo for that DVR capability.
The "full blown space consuming PC" (and don't forget expensive) won't have an issue with paying TiVo because it's powerful enough to not need TiVo's media switch.
You're right, there's going to be a convergence to one box but it won't be Xbox if you want it to do *everything*.
Their equipment was expensive and was behind other offers in capacity. The Tivo isn't the easiest thing to use with Satellite receivers or cable boxes and the list goes on.
And, then Dish turns around and reworks it so they are not using Tivo's patents and that isn't enough either. Because Tivo knows that unless they are the only game they are just going to be deal all that much sooner.
If Tivo had a brain they would have done 500 hour boxes for $49.95 with free service. They could make thier money off advertising (banner ads on screen) and selling the stats. But no they wanted everything and now they will pay the price for it.
They should have worked with Dish instead of going after them. A single box will always be better than two boxes, two remotes, etc.
Good by Tivo I am glad to see you dying!
Robert
Tivo is BS.
Feel free to read my post a couple above yours. You just made the case for TiVo. The patent isn't on the DVR. The patent is on the media switch which allowed for a DVR on a $200 box as opposed to a $2,000 computer - which is probably what the average computer cost 10 years ago.
As I posted previous, so if you don't think a patent should be issued for an invention that allows a $200 device to do the work of an $2,000 device (which allowed for the growth of an entire new consumer electronics category), then how about just doing away with the patent system altogether?
Cable sucks in most of the country with very limited HD content I will be damned to have to go back to that 20th century quality of service.
- by One-Eared Gundark June 4, 2009 6:45 AM PDT
- longtime_firsttime, the price of that computer you talk about sure took a jump in price, from $800 to $2000. Wow! A computer in the $200-$300 range will perform HD DVR duty these days. Ten years ago, HD wasn't on the scene, and a PC capable of DVR duty back then MAY have just reached the $800 mark. The hardware just is not that expensive.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(27 Comments)Without knowing the real details of the case, I cannot make an informed judgment about who is right or wrong in this situation. I do know that Tivo does not work with HD satellite signals, so that makes it a no-go for me.
I really hate these lawsuits. The consumers (you and I) usually get the shaft, the companies involved get a tarnished image and sometimes go broke, and the lawyers laugh all the way to the bank.