EchoStar loses appeal of contempt in TiVo fight
updated 02:00 pm EDT, Wed April 20, 2011
Appeals court tosses EchoStar contempt for TiVo
EchoStar on Wednesday lost its case in a Federal Court of Appeals to try and overturn a contempt ruling in favor of TiVo. The court upheld a decision that EchoStar's Dish satellite TV DVRs were breaking a permanent ban on violating TiVo patents even after changes were made to the hardware. EchoStar is expected to pay a $300 million fine that it had reversed in May of last year.
It wasn't clear after the verdict what EchoStar planned to do.
TiVo and EchoStar have been fighting each other in court since 2006 and has insisted that Dish boxes were copying the Time Warp technique at the core of TiVo recorders. DVR support has been a staple of Dish and would likely inflict a major financial hit on the company as it replaced its hardware.
