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Unimpressed by the appeal put forth by DISH Network and EchoStar, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the previous ruling of a lower court which awarded TiVo $300 million or more. The previous ruling had found that the satellite operator was in contempt of a previous order which had demanded that all DVRs that infringed on an important patent held by TiVo be disabled.
EchoStar Communications was taken to court on the grounds of patent infringement by TiVo back in 2004. As of August 2006 DISH found itself having been ordered to disable all of its DVR equipment that violates the TiVo patent.
The patent in question concerned TiVo’s “Time Warp” technology which lies at the heart of its DVR capabilities. DISH Network continued to hold out on disabling its DVRs and by June 2009 found itself in contempt of court. This led to the award of another $103 million and interest to TiVo. Once again, by September 2009 DISH and EchoStar were ordered to pay even more fines to cover additional damages as well as sanctions for the contempt charge. With this new amount the total was now in excess of $300 million.
