Dish in another Patent Suite, This time over Dish Pro Plus

**MikeinBaja** · 06-22-2009 09:44 PM

No matter what date you believe, more of DN's $ in litigation - more black clouds - AKA business as usual.

Must be sad to run your buiness model based on stealing other's ideas & making more $ than you pay the lawyers to push it off into the sunset.

One of the major reasons I would never sign with Charlie's crowd.

Just my 2 pennies.

**edge10** · 06-22-2009 10:38 PM

I'm not an expert at reading Patents but this link:

United States Patent: 7542717

says it was 'Filed: March 24, 2005'

**iwc5893** · 06-22-2009 10:43 PM

Ooops, that is the patent referenced in the lawsuit. I based my response off of Goaliebob's link earlier in the thread.

But my question remains, even if Dish has been using that technology since then, now that's it's patented, are the patent protections retroactive or did Charlie get a four year freebie because the USPTO takes years to approve something?

**Awohar** · 06-22-2009 11:34 PM

so wouldn't it have taken 4 years then for charlie to get his patent?

also, i've invented time travel so don't anyone here think of doing it because if my patent comes after yours, i'll sue. either that or go back and file it in the 1800s

**nelson61** · 06-22-2009 11:38 PM

This is a continuing part of litigation that has been in progress for a number of years.

From Dish SEC filings:

"Global Communications

On April 19, 2007, Global Communications, Inc. (“Global”) filed a patent infringement action against us and EchoStar in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit alleges infringement of United States Patent No. 6,947,702 (the ‘702 patent), which relates to satellite reception. On October 24, 2007, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted our request for reexamination of the ‘702 patent and issued an Office Action finding that all of the claims of the ‘702 patent were invalid. At the request of the parties, the District Court stayed the litigation until the reexamination proceeding is concluded and/or other Global patent applications issue.
We intend to vigorously defend this case. In the event that a Court ultimately determines that we infringe the ‘702 patent, we may be subject to substantial damages, which may include treble damages, and/or an injunction that could require us to materially modify certain user-friendly features that we currently offer to consumers. We cannot predict with any degree of certainty the outcome of the suit or determine the extent of any potential liability or damages. "

**kstuart** · 06-22-2009 11:40 PM

Suite !!

( I can't believe I got that in before Tony, given his sig... )

**jacmyoung** · 06-23-2009 02:10 AM

So GC had a prior litigation against E* on a prior patent, E* managed to get the USPTO to invalidate the patent, GC had another new patent application and was just approved by the USPTO which is very similar to the previous one which the USPTO had invalidated. The next logical step appears to be E* tries to get this new patent invalidated by the USPTO again.

The obvious question is, what was the USPTO doing when they approved the previous patent, only had it invalidated on E*'s reexamination request?

**JimK2** · 06-23-2009 07:52 AM

Originally Posted by Brussam

Just wondering:

The Glogal Communications Inc Patent was filed on March 24, 2005.

I searched and found articles on DishPro technology published on August 24, 2004.

I know it may be hard for the Charlie bashers to accept, but maybe this is a nuisance lawsuit againt E*.

DishPro has been around since 2002

DishPro vs Legacy LNBF - DBSTalk.Com

**jacmyoung** · 06-23-2009 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by JimK2

DishPro has been around since 2002

DishPro vs Legacy LNBF - DBSTalk.Com

If I understand the issues correctly, there are two patents discussed.

The initial patent was about DishPro, after GC filed the infringement suit against E* in the Texas court, E* requested a patent reexamination and the USPTO found "all of the claims...were invalid." As a result the previous litigation was stayed by the Texas court. The reason for invalidating the DishPro patent was most likely that such invention was not an invention, many similar inventions preceded it.

Now GC got a new patent approved, it has to do with DishPro Plus. Immediately GC filed the new suit in the Florida court. If both patents are about the same technology, they are very similar, so it is possible E* may get the USPTO to invalidate this new patent too.

But even if this new patent is more "bullet proof" and more difficult to invalidate, assume this time around the USPTO had done a much better job to limit the scope of the patent, by virtue of a more bullet proof patent, it will be more difficult to prove infringement of such patent, simply because as I just mentioned, for a patent to be more bullet proof, the claim scope must be more limiting.

This is the similar strategy E* used in the TiVo case, while they failed to invalidate TiVo's patent during the 06 trial, they did not give up, now the USPTO agreed to reexamine the two software claims of the TiVo's patent because of new evidence provided by E*, if this time the USPTO invalidates the TiVo's software claims, the Texas court could also stay all pending proceedings in the TiVo case just like the Texas court did in the previous GC case, because E* only infringed on the software claims.