MUMBAI: Dish Network and EchoStar will have to cough out $200 million to TiVo Inc for violating an injunction on using a DVR technology that can pause or rewind live TV, according to a court decision.
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US District Court of Eastern District of Texas judge David Folsom ordered Dish and Echostar to pay $110 million in damages and $90 in sanctions to Tivo, plus attorney fees. He further added that Dish will be liable to more sanctions if it loses on an appeal of the case. |
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Dish had violated the permanent injunction from a 2004 lawsuit, which TiVo had filed as Dish was distributing DVR functionality to subscribers that contained an emulation of its "Time Warp" feature. Dish at that time lost the patent infringement case, but while the case was on appeal, it designed modified software. |
For the contempt suit, TiVo had demanded Dish to pay $1 billion for using the modified technology from April 2008 to July 2009. However, the court ruled this out.
Meanwhile, after the hearing, Dish said in a statement that they are pleased that the district court rejected Tivo‘s request to award a billion dollars in sanctions and that it found that any violation of the injunction was not willful. "While we disagree that any amount of sanctions was warranted, the decision confirms our belief that we designed around Tivo‘s patent in good faith. We believe that we ultimately will prevail on appeal," Dish said.