Dish Network has until April 30 to settle its years-long patent litigation with TiVo, or -- barring an unlikely rehearing of an appeals court's ruling -- the satellite operator will be forced to disable millions of customer DVRs.
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On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom of the Eastern District of Texas granted Dish an extension until April 30 on a previous stay of his injunction ordering the satellite operator to shut off DVRs that infringe TiVo's "Time Warp" patent.
If you can't get a good business model, get a good lawyer.
Higher court in the offing?
Dish's hopes now rest on its motion for an en banc rehearing of the appeals court decision, Moffett wrote -- a motion he calculated has less than a 3% chance of being granted based on historical averages.
According to the quoted article, it seems unlikely. DishNet has appealed to the full court (instead of the 3-judge panel that recently ruled), but the article states:
My understanding is that, next above this court is the Supreme Court, which has already declined to hear this case earlier. I do give Charlie credit for creative ways to drag this case on, though, so don't count them out yet.
Didn't someone predict here that this would play out to the bitter end and if push came to shove, Dish would just buy Tivo?
The report is a bit misleading because it fails to mention that Dish has submitted a proposal to modify its software to no longer be infringing on TIVO's patent and based on the wording of the last injunction, Judge Folsom is suppose to review this modification proposal. So Judge Folsom could extend this deadline to review this proposal or in fact review and approve this modification without Dish settling with TIVO.
As Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett noted this morning, U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom yesterday extended a stay of the DVR injunction issued against the company in connection with the TiVo (TIVO) patent infringement case until April 30. The extension, he notes, was in response to a March 9 emergency motion for an expedited evaluation of the latest DISH software workaround of the TiVo patents. Moffett says the judge effectively declined to review the software, claiming he was simply too busy with other cases.
Moffett says DISH is “now negotiating with a gun to its head.” He says it would now appear to be impossible for the company to have a non-infringing workaround approved by April 30, Dish’s hopes rest on a motion for a rehearing of the Appeals Court decision which went against DISH.
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If DISH fails to reach a settlement with TiVo by April 30, Moffett says, they would have two options. One, disable the offending boxes, which would not go over well with the company’s subscribers. Or two, it could continue to willfully infringe; in that scenario, there is a rish the judge could impost additional sanctions and/or disgorgement of profits.
I wonder if customer phones will start ringing soon with offers of free DVR upgrades to VIP?
The ViP models use the same infringing software processes and would have to be disabled too.I wonder if customer phones will start ringing soon with offers of free DVR upgrades to VIP?
The ViP models use the same infringing software processes and would have to be disabled too.
Yes it does. The injunction requires disablement of DVRs that are only colorably different from the named models. Ergen said in SEC filings that if they lose the appeal they would have to disable all their DVRs.Whether you believe that or not is immaterial. The current litigation does NOT include any of the Dish VIP DVR's.
The ViP models use the same infringing software processes and would have to be disabled too.
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