TiVo won another round in its legal battle with Dish Network. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a ruling from a lower court that Dish Networks violated TiVO’s patent on a ‘multimedia time warping system’. Besides the fact that Dish is on the hook for $89.6 million in damages, they might have to stop selling DVRs and disable all functionality from their current recorders. That would mean some real pissed off customers.
With the validity of the patents, the damage award, and the jury verdict all upheld upon appeal, Dish appears to be out of options. The satellite TV provider is now faced with the unpleasant decision of whether to stop selling DVRs and shut off its DVR service, hope against hope that the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, or write an eight- or nine-figure check to TiVo to cover damages and license the patents. At this point, the latter option is Dish Network’s best bet.
This is obviously terrible news for Dish and great news for DirecTV, who have standing agreements with TiVo and still uses some of it’s software on their DVRs.
[via arstechnica]
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