TiVo Wins Permanent Injunction Against EchoStar

ZenFodderBoy writes "It's official! Judge Folsom entered his ruling today granting TiVo nearly $90 million in damages, plus granting a permanent injunction calling for the disabling of nearly all of EchoStar's DVRs within the next 30 days. EchoStar's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal was denied. Additionally, the judge reserves the right to grant additional damages in the future, so treble damages may still be coming. Excellent news for TiVo!"

Comments

Re:Stock?

[ZephyrXero]

I'm more concerned about what this means for projects like MythTV...

Re:this isn't that bad...

[badfish99]

Now they have a monopoly, so can charge monopoly prices. I'm sure that's a win for someone, but I'm not sure how it's a win for everyone.

This will do nothing but harm the consumer & T

[Julius X]

Disclaimer: I work for Echostar.

  I'm just a Technical Support Representative, but I've been reading about this case long before I worked there.

The initial ruling, I applauded. Yes, Echostar screwed up with Tivo. Yes, I think they should have to pay for that mistake, in monetary terms. Tivo earned at least that much.

However - DVR functionality at this point is just about commonplace - Dish/Echostar's DVRs perform the same functions that Tivo, and 50 other competing products do, and to tell Echostar that it can no longer compete in this now-established market is tantamount to handing the company over to a Firing Squad.

Nevermind the fact that there are now millions of Dish Network customers that are using DVR recievers, that will find out about this case, find that they've lost the functionality that they have been paying for every month - and place the blame squarely on - guess who? - Tivo.

Now, I like Tivo - and I hope they succeed, and again, I'm more than happy to see them monetarily compensated for the situation. But this is not punishing Echostar/Dish - this is only punishing the consumers who have bought those devices and who use them every day, and continue to do so.

On a personal note - this lawsuit will make my life a living hell, becuase those millions of customers will be calling me to explain why they can no longer use the functionality that they signed up for. The first time I recieve a phonecall asking why our DVR service has disappeared and why they cannot use the hard drive on the device they paid for, is the day that I turn in my resignation.

Re:Patents expire

[stinerman]

Eventually the patent should expire and at that point the market would open up and prices would drop significantly.

Yes, after that technology is long obsolete. LZW compression is no longer patented. It isn't widely used anymore outside GIFs, TIFFs, and PDFs because its obsolete. There are better ways of compressing data (see DEFLATE and Burrows-Wheeler algorithms).

What is so bad about patent law? It's a win-win for all.

Your UID is very high, so I'll excuse that remark.

New innovations are protected ecnourageing more innovation and it gives the consumers an appetite for when the patent expires and the market really opens up.

That is how it works in theory. In practice:

1) The patentee gets a patent on something he didn't actually invent, but was first to file.
2) Patents are granted on mundane, obvious inventions. (Queue the "obvious invention on a computer/Internet" patents) These are granted because patent examiners don't have much technical expertise in the field and have limited time to check for prior art.
3) If you do actually invent something non-obvious, and the big guys infringe on your patent, you'll bankrupt yourself via legal fees trying to get them to pay.

Should we get rid of patent law because it creates a monoploy for a period of time?

Dare I say yes?

Dish to Disable DVRs ?

[Douglas Goodall]

I paid extra for receivers with PVR/DVR capability. I pay the DVR surcharge each month for each receiver I have activated that has a DVR. I have 180HRS of recorded programs on my DVR I still want to watch. It looks to me like instead of a deal between Tivo and Dish to make things ok, the Dish customers are going to get royally screwed in this case. We paid, took our time to collect programs to watch, and they are about to be taken away unexpectedly. How about a class action suit on behalf of the Dish customers that are about to lose out? dwg

Re:This won't be good for tivo in the long run

[Secrity]

The Barton time warp patent is not a submarine patent. Tivo did not hide the existance of the patent and Tivo claims that they informed Echostar of the pending patents when they first pitched the Tivo to Echostar. It appears to me that Echostar stole Tivo's idea when they showed the prototype Tivo to Echostar. Whether this judgement and Tivo's patents can stand the test of time is an unknown right now. Tivo's most important patents are for the ability to simultaneously record and play back a video stream and for not using the CPU to do the encoding / decoding. Tivo had operating prototypes at the time that they applied for the patent. Although it doesn't really matter because software patents are enforceable in the US, it appears that these Tivo patents are not purely software related, nor are they simply abstract ideas; they involved the use of specialized hardware. I am not sure whether these technologies were obvious or novel at the time that the patent was applied for.

A stupid judgment that penalises customers...

[jkrise]

Why is it that the customer has to suffer? A while ago, when Microsoft lost a patent dispute, they urged customers to apply a Service Pack for Office, and stop using the version that got shipped on purchase!

What fault is it of the customer, if the vendor from who he purchsaed some product / service is found guilty of patent abuse? If Echostar has abused TiVo's patents and sold a few millions of their products... I think a more equitable judgement ought to be along the lines... like, Echostar to pay TiVo the requisite license money so that existing customers may continue to use their products and services uninterrupted.

A patent should not imply that one single company has exclusive rights to implement, sell and support products based out of the said patent. The true purpose of patents is in fact, to spur innovation... not to build monopolies. Echostar might be directed NOT TO sell future products in violation of patents... it appears UNJUST that existing customers suffer a loss of functionality because of this. What if a patent violation happened in a medicinal drug? Patients must vomit already ingested medicines and die?