Digital Media

Less than 24 hours after a federal judge found EchoStar in contempt in its long-running patent dispute with TiVo, another judge issued a temporary stay Wednesday, according to EchoStar.

"We are pleased that the Federal Appeals Court in Washington temporarily stayed the district court's order in the TiVo litigation. Dish Network customers can continue using their DVRs. We believe that we have strong grounds for appeal," the company said in a statement.

The temporary stay drags out even further a legal contest that is now five years old. It seemed like it had come close to reaching its conclusion on Tuesday evening when U.S. District Judge David Folsom 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." He then ordered EchoStar to pay $103 million to TiVo.

"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."

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.

CNET News' Steven Musil contributed to this report.

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.

Of all the sports leagues, Major League Baseball has the reputation of being the most technologically savvy. On Thursday, MLB proved it by winning its first tech patent.

Bob Bowman says baseball couldn't stream games without subscriber-locating system.

(Credit: Major League Baseball Advanced Media)

The league's digital unit, Major League Baseball Advanced Media(MLBAM), announced on Thursday that it was granted patent No. 7,486,943 for a system that helps determine a subscriber's geographical location. MLBAM oversees MLB.tv, the online video distribution service that streams live and on-demand games, and is widely considered to be the most successful subscription business on the Internet.

Pinpointing where a subscriber is located when he or she logs on to watch a game is necessary to avoid violating "blackout rules." TV stations all over the nation purchase exclusive broadcast rights from the clubs that cover highly specific geographical areas. MLBAM's system enables the service to locate where subscribers are logging on and block them from receiving streaming video of a game if they are located in a region where a TV broadcaster has the exclusive rights to show the game.

Sure, the blackout rules frustrate plenty of sports fans, but without baseball's subscriber-locating system, MLBAM would be prevented from streaming games over the Web, said the company's CEO, Bob Bowman.

Baseball finds MLB.tv users via a system that combines several different pieces of tracking software. Quova, based in Mountain View, Calif., contributes with software that helps determine a person's network address. The software makes a series of best guesses and assigns a confidence factor to the estimate. MLBAM will then use other sources, such as payment data, to close in on a person's local.

Correction, 10:50 a.m. PDT: This story gave an incorrect date for the filing of the patent. It was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1999.

Update: 2:10 p.m. To include Discovery's reasons for owning e-book patent.

Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, has filed a complaint against Amazon.com alleging that some security and copy protection features in the Kindle and Kindle 2 violate the company's patents.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Discovery has asked for unspecified monetary compensation.

Amazon representatives were not immediately available for comment.

According to a copy of the suit, Discovery charges that Amazon violated its patent for Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System. The patent, U.S. 7,298,851, was issued to Discovery Communications by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Nov. 20, 2007, per the lawsuit filing (PDF). It was initially filed in 1999.

The technology "provides for secure distribution of electronic text and graphics to subscribers and secure storage," Discovery said in the lawsuit.

My question is, why did Discovery create technology for an e-book reader? Is the entertainment company preparing to follow Amazon, Sony, and Hearst Corp. into the e-reader space?

After talking to a Discovery spokeswoman, she explains that the company's founder, John Hendricks is a bit of an inventor. In the 1990s, Hendricks tried his hand at coming up with systems to digitize content.

He explored technologies involving the digitization of TV content as well as e-book systems. In 2004, he sold the TV patents but Discovery kept the e-reader patents. When asked whether Discovery could build an e-book reader, the company's spokeswoman said "We are only focused on the Kindle at this time."