RSSTiVo, EchoStar Court Battle Heats Up
By Ed Oswald | Published May 24, 2006, 3:10 PM
TiVo has filed an injunction in its continuing patent battle with EchoStar, which runs the DISH Network, asking the court to bar the company from manufacturing or selling digital video recorders. The Alviso, Calif., based company had won a jury ruling against EchoStar in April.
However, EchoStar shot back, saying in a statement that the Patent Office had overturned some of TiVo's patent claims. "We are pleased that the United States Patent and Trademark Office yesterday rejected many of TiVo's patent claims as invalid," the company said in a statement.
It called the USPTO's decision in conjunction with a favorable decision from the Court of Appeals "steps in the right direction" as it prepares to defend itself against the injunction. However, TiVo replied via a statement, calling EchoStar's claims "misleading spin."
"The USPTO reexamined all 61 claims set forth in the Barton patent confirming the validity of most of the claims, including two of the claims that EchoStar has been found to have willfully infringed," TiVo replied. "While certain of the patent claims were rejected by the patent office, this should in no way impact the jury verdict."
TiVo plans to discuss the implications of the patent ruling and its next steps during an earnings conference call after the close of the market Wednesday.
In the jury case, EchoStar was found guilty of willfully infringing upon TiVo's "time warp" patent. However, a Court of Appeals found the Texas court abused its discretion in connection with key trial evidence withheld from the jury, putting the ruling in some danger of being overturned.
Tivo should have never been given most of those
patents in the first place. Tivo gets most of its
money from the monthly service fees. Right now
most cable companies have their own systems. So,
Tivo is out in the cold now. Companies like
Comcast, Timewarner, DirectTV, and DishNetwork
have there own DVR solution. An doing well with
it.
Thats why Tivo is sueing ... They are losing
customers to the big cable and disk companies.
They should be using there resourses and make
a better DVR box that works with DirectTV and
DishNetwork. An have the box get its info
directly from the channel guide, so you can
record you shows.
It's alot they could be doing , instead of
lawsuits ... A good example ... IBM vs SCO ...
SCO started the law suit when IBM didn't buy
them. They open a can of worms ... and crap
is everywhere now. They are almost Chapter 11
because of this lawsuit.
So, bottom line ... Tivo needs to step back
and rethink the lawsuits and offer the
end users a better solution.
Score: 0
|I have Dish Network with the DVR they give. Before that I had local cable with their dual tuner HDTV DVR. Both DVRs had the same functions including a button to skip about 30 seconds ahead. I've never had tivo but I assume the "Time Warp" funtion is the same thing. If so it seems that tivo wont when this one. All it is, is a glorified fast forward button. Granted I use that button instead of fast forward to skip past commercials, but still. I can't believe they got a patent for that and are now sueing someone for having something like it. Well I hate to tell Tivo, but Dish Network isn't the only ones giving out DVRs and it wont stop.
Score: 0
|TiVo = SCO.
Score: 0
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