TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), the Rasputin of DVR providers, has again been given a new lease on life by a U.S. Court of Appeals that said, yes indeed, Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) and sister company EchoStar Corp. (Nasdaq: SATS) infringed on TiVo's DVR patents and must disable the infringing DVRs it's distributed to its customers. On top of that, the court's split decision ruled that Dish was in contempt for not paying royalties to TiVo.
"The decision is a victory, and perhaps a definitive one, for TiVo," Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research note.
TiVo, of course, hailed the decision which would provide an important cash infusion, noting in a statement that the ruling "paves the way for TiVo to receive substantial damages and contempt sanctions (Moffett estimated as much as $3 billion) regarding DVRs that EchoStar and Dish Network failed to disable."
Dish and EchoStar had their own take and said it would take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court "and seek a stay of the injunction while doing so." Dish made it a point that the ruling only affects "certain older generation MPEG-2 DVRs. We have already upgraded many of these customers and if we are unsuccessful in obtaining a stay, we will work as quickly as possible to upgrade the remaining customers to our current generation of DVRs, as these are not an issue in the rulings."
For more:
- Forbes.com has this story
Related articles:
Patent office hands TiVo a loss in battle with Dish, Echostar
Court grants Dish a reprieve in TiVo patent case
Patent lawsuit update: TiVo gets $200M