TiVo wins major court ruling against Dish Network

TiVo, Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) has won an important court battle over Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) regarding patent infringement, the company announced yesterday. EchoStar Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: SATS), which recently separated the Dish satellite television business from its hardware manufacturing business (set-top boxes) was named in the suit along with Dish Network. The court judgment was estimated at $94 million against Dish and EchoStar when interest is factored into the settlement.

The suit stems from Dish's use (err, infringement) of TiVo's patented "time-shifting" DVR technology, which allows those customers with a DVR to pause, fast-forward and rewind television. I'm not sure why other DVR makers that allow rewinding and fast forwarding weren't targeted by TiVo as well, but that's another post.

Dish responded to the federal court appeals ruling by stating that "This decision will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar's engineers have developed and deployed 'next-generation' DVR software to our customers' DVRs." If that is so, Dish believes that the software that has already rolled out to Dish DVR customers no longer infringes on TiVo's intellectual property -- although this is probably not the last we'll hear from TiVo on the subject.