Supreme Court ignores EchoStar appeal against TiVo suit
The Supreme Court announced Monday it is refusing to take up EchoStar Communications' appeal against a patent infringement suit filed against it by TiVo.
A jury in 2006 found that EchoStar's Dish Network digital video recorders 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, as did a second U.S. appeals court in April.
The Supreme Court's decision to deny EchoStar's appeal leaves the company responsible for paying full damages plus interest to TiVo--for a total of $104 million--and upholds a permanent injunction against EchoStar's infringing digital video recording products.
"We look forward to the expeditious receipt of damages awarded by the District Court covering the period through September 8, 2006 and remain confident that the District Court will enforce the injunction and award further damages from EchoStar's continued infringement of our Time Warp patent," TiVo said in a statement.
EchoStar said the court's decision was expected but that it does not affect its customers since the Dish DVRs in question have been equipped with a software design-around.
"We believe that the design-around does not infringe Tivo's patent and that Tivo's pending motion for contempt should be denied," the company said in a statement. "We look forward to that ruling in the near future."
TiVo first filed suit against EchoStar in 2004.
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie. 
Maybe you should do a little research before you decide which side to take.
In general, I think the whole patent process needs to be revamped. Many patents need to be thrown away (including all software patents IMO). Specifically, with regard to this case, I have no idea what exactly they've patented and, therefore, I'm not taking one side or the other.
I do own two Tivo's, and consider it to be some of the best money I've ever spent, so one might argue I'm not completely without bias on this issue.
They patented it, Echostar infringed, and got sued. That's how it works. (FYI the patent is for "multimedia time warping technology", see here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6233389.html -- hardly a piecemeal patent.)
TiVo's look and feel, the slickness of the UI, etc. is unsurpassed in the industry. I've used TiVo, DirectTV's homegrown solution, Scientific Atlanta and Motorolas set top boxes. None of the competitors comes close to the ease-of-use and general robustness of TiVo. TiVo has been so effective that the name of the company is now used as a verb...
Some applications are, simply put, obvious. People have known for years that the computer will eventually become the center of the home (media, electrical, etc.). Eventually it will make shopping lists for you by monitoring whats being taken from the fridge/cupboard, look for coupons that correlate to this list and pre-print them for you, monitor security devices/fire alarms/etc. and call the police/fire department/ambulance when appropriate, record your favorite TV and radio, maintain your personal music/movie library, home heating and cooling, turning off lights in empty rooms, recording and managing phone messages (and even conversations), turning off the lawn sprinklers if it's raining that day, etc., etc.. It's obvious that phones should eventually be a portal to all of this (internet, email, your home media, home security status, etc., etc.) When the phones become very small (something you can wear continuously on your ear for example) it will need a voice recognition interface (since it will have no screen). The reason these haven't been built is that the technology isn't there yet. There will be valid patents involved (faster processors, etc.) But the base idea (like having email on your phone) is obvious. As soon as someone figured out how to effectively hook cell phones into the internet (with decent bandwidth) adding email access was a foregone conclusion, NOT A PATENTABLE IDEA!
This all seems fairly obvious to anyone paying attention to technology trends but I assure you people will (and have) filed patents on such.
One of the key tests for a patent is that it must NOT be obvious to someone reasonably skilled in the art (in this case the art referred to is multimedia electronics/software/systems). One of the biggest problems with the patent system is that whether or not this criteria is met will not be decided by people with the appropriate experience, but, almost certainly, by 12 people with no higher than a high school education and NO experience in the field in question. By their very nature, these issues NEED to be addressed by people familiar with the technology in question.
All this being said, I still love my Tivo's.
I'll get off my soap box now...
As a side note, I've used them all and really do like the Dish interface the best. I notice you didn't mention having used them as well in your post. That essentially means you shouldn't judge it quite yet until you've actually seen it and worked with it for yourself for some time.
They'll never invent anything important so they see no need to protect what comes out of R&D.
You've just disqualified your own statement and can now no longer offer any comments without folks having a silent chucke on the inside.
So maybe, everyone can really just make a mistake and not all stupid? Ya'think?
- by daftkey October 6, 2008 1:13 PM PDT
- Faus and Jotterson:
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(10 Comments)Wow - it's been a long time since I actually heard anything intelligent from commenters in these forums when it comes to technology patents.
Thanks for the refreshing change!