DISH Network and Echostar Statement Regarding PTO Ruling
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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One would think that any violation of the Fugitive Slave Law would be moot after the 14th amendment.
I think all your argument could do is prevent Dish from recovering the $104 million already paid.
I think all your argument could do is prevent Dish from recovering the $104 million already paid.
That verdict and the damages awarded are final. It's the contempt citation and additional damages that are being questioned now. And, most importantly, will E* have to shut down the infringing DVR's as Judge Folsom ordered.
If the appeals court upholds the contempt citation and E* does not have a licensing deal with TIVO then ...
You are basing this on what? I believe that E*'s modified software does not infringe but Judge Folsom found that it does. If E* cannot get a majority of the appeals court judges to agree, then the verdict stands. E* will then have three choices, deal with TIVO, comply with the injunction and shut down the infringing DVR's or continue to violate the injunction and have Judge Folsom throw the book at them. As many defendants have found out, what you believe to be true and what you can prove in court are two different things.
the question isn't "when was the patent valid?" the question is "was the patent ever valid?"
the answer is. "no"
Therefore it could not have been infringed upon.
To correct your crime example.
If you were accused of committing a crime but it was later shown that the act was not criminal in the first place. No crime was actually committed.
Let's say you were accused and even convicted of jaywalking. If upon later review it was found that your actions were not jaywalking, then no crime was committed in the first place. The conviction would have to be set aside and removed from your record.
Following up on a post by Don Landis, I think the TIVO 10-K just filed notes Tivo has $790 million or so in debt, and some $240 million in cash. I believe any purchaser would be purchasing the debt as well as the assets.
Regards,
Fitzie
Regards,
Fitzie
Bad deal
In that case let them go belly up after they spend the $240M. The more than a 3 to 1 debt ratio.
In that case let them go belly up after they spend the $240M. The more than a 3 to 1 debt ratio.
Seems like some folks don't understand that its impossible to violate a patent is that patent no longer exists.
...
And ultimately if there is no patent then it doesn't matter anyways.
Thats my opinion on it anyways.
TiVo will appeal. As of today the Patent still exists. The En Banc judges must enforce the law in effect today. That being said, they may be more open minded to accept the work around with the Patent in question.
According to the TiVo Fanboys this is the same thing that happened the first time E* tried to have the Patent thrown out. I think we have to keep level heads here. Dish won this (up hill) battle. The War is not quite over yet.
Yahoo! Message Boards - TiVo Inc. (TIVO) - Janney on TIVO...
The only thing assured is that the Lawyers will get richer.
Yes they would but I missed the debt liability you referenced. The cash value of the company is rapidly dwindling as referenced by the most recent 10Q.
Here are the numbers pulled from the latest 10Q filed yesterday:
TIVO INC.
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
(In thousands)
(unaudited)
April 30, 2010
ASSETS
CURRENT ASSETS
Cash and cash equivalents
$ 68,121
Short-term investments
187,355
Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $342 and $409
19,683
Inventories
12,368
Prepaid expenses and other, current (see Note 1)
9,529
Total current assets
297,056
LONG-TERM ASSETS
Property and equipment, net of accumulated depreciation of $42,503
11,238
Purchased technology, capitalized software, and intangible assets, net of accumulated amortization of $13,153
8,913
Prepaid expenses and other, long-term
1,281
Long-term investments
7,548
Total long-term assets
28,980
Total assets
$ 326,036
LIABILITIES
CURRENT LIABILITIES
Accounts payable
$ 21,715
Accrued liabilities
24,654
Deferred revenue, current
35,283
Total current liabilities
81,652
LONG-TERM LIABILITIES
Deferred revenue, long-term
30,819
Deferred rent and other long-term liabilities
255
Total long-term liabilities
31,074
Total liabilities
112,726
Assets - liabilities= value on the books
326,036,000 - 112,726,000 = 213,310,000
I proposed that the money paid by Dish to TIVO is in that balance of 213,310,000
Where is the 790M in liability? I missed it.
I have doubts that the NBR feature of most DVRs offers more than a subset of TiVo's Season Pass feature. On the other hand, adding the "28 day rule" to NBR hardly seems revolutionary.
David- I don't think the civil suit is about what is law but rather an infringement of a right to invention ( patent) This requires a judge to make a decision based on the validity of a patent. The fact that the USPO continues to review the claims for a third time is indicative of new evidence that was presented. However they claimed this time the decision was final. I felt that was the key word on this matter. If final means you can continue to request review ad infinitum, then this case will never be settled until one of the litigants is bust. The Tivo fanboys fail to recognize the huge difference in this rulling, The word FINAL decision on this matter.
Another explanation to my question was that the judges ruling is final until an enbanc hearing is complete. Since this was granted, there can't be a contempt charge. I understand that in a civil case rules of law are different than criminal cases, so all the comparisons to criminal law violations don't hold water. In other words, if you commit a crime, and later the law making what you did a crime is overturned, you go free. If they make sales of MJ legal, all those serving time for just sales of MJ will be set free.
The Janney comments intentionally tried to mislead, that is to assume they had lawyers to review the statement.
In the last reexamination, the software claims were NEVER rejected, because of the so called "object" claimed in them. At the time the term "object" was considered nonobvious because none of the cited prior art used that term.
During the trial however TiVo broadened the term "object" to mean "colletion of data and operations" in order to capture E*'s DVRs, the district court agreed, and the appeals court unheld such claim construction. After that E* was able to re-argue to the PTO for the second reexamination with the same prior art, because they all disclosed "collection of data and operations" terms. In other words what you say during the litigation can be used againt you.
Secondly, Janney were absolutely wrong about combining multiple prior art being a novel approach, it is laughable which is why I suspect they do not have lawyers to proof-read. Congress passed the patent reform act with the intent to allow invalidation of claims based on the combination of multiple prior art. This is the law, I can't believe these analysts will blatantly mislead their clients.
Third, in this PTO Final Action, the Examiner clearly told TiVo, the only possible way to survive the rejection is to add the terms "downstream", "pipeline" and "blocked" features into the two software claims. Also if you read the TiVo's response, it intends to work with the Examiner, not to appeal his Final Action. Meaning TiVo is likely to amend the claims for recertification of the patent.
TiVo tried to amend the claims one time already right before this Final Action, but the PTO Examiner did not enter it because it did not meet his requirement. TiVo's last amendment did not in any way modify the software claims themselves, only added several new DEPENDENT claims.
Lastly, the law says, if the patent owner amends the claims (making the modified claims not substantially identical to the old claims) in order to overcome claim rejection, and succeeds in the reissuing of the patent, no party can be liable for any possible infirngement acts PRIOR TO the reissuing of the patent.
It all depends on what TiVo will do in the next two months, if they do what the PTO asked, which TiVo had tried to do already but did not go far enough, the reexamination can be quickly recertified which will result in E* completely cleared of any prior liabilities. We will have to wait and see.
The quesiton is, why would TiVo do that? Let E* off the hook? Because if it doesn't see a good chance of winning the en banc review, it might want to cut the loss because TiVo needs the software claims recertified before they can use them to do after Verizon and ATT.
Thanks, that makes sense. I hope it works out that way (the law frequently doesn't make sense to me -> TiVo never should have gotten this patent in the first place).
I am not understanding you logic here because Verizon and ATT both have had their DVRs in the marketplace for awhile. If the TIVO patent is re-issued, TIVO can't seek an infringement judgement against Verizon and ATT based on your statement above. Am I missing something?
