Supreme Court Denies Dish's Petition On TiVo Patent Damage Award
This story was written by David Kaplan.
TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO) has scored another legal victory in its battle against the Dish Network. The Supreme Court has denied Dish's appeal on a $74 million penalty for violating the patent on TiVo's Time Warp, AP reported. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a lower court that DVRs distributed by Dish, formerly known as EchoStar Communications (NSDQ: SATS), violated TiVo's Time Warp feature, which covers devices that can record, store, play, rewind and fast forward live TV. That ruling overturned the lower court's finding that Dish also infringed on the patent's hardware elements. Two years ago, a Texas jury found that Dish had violated TiVo's patent and awarded the company $94 million in damages. In the meantime, Dish Network has said it is creating new software for its DVR feature that says will avoid the previous DVR issues.
TiVo released a statement applauding the Supreme Court's decision, adding, "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."
By David Kaplan