Court Denies Dish/TiVo Rehearing
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 4/11/2008 1:28:00 PM
Washington — EchoStar’s Dish Network struck out again in its bid to overturn a ruling that it had infringed certain patents on DVR technology, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District denied Dish Network’s motion to rehear the case.
Dish had claimed that one of TiVo’s witnesses in the last trial had made inconsistent statements that warranted the case being reheard. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that the satellite TV provider had violated several TiVo patents.
In a statement, TiVo applauded the court’s decision to deny a rehearing, saying: “We are extremely pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today denied EchoStar's petition for a rehearing en banc, upholding the Court's unanimous ruling in our favor on Jan. 31, 2008, in EchoStar's appeal of the district court judgment of patent infringement, full award of damages and an order for the injunction to be reinstated.
“Today's ruling brings us closer to resolution of EchoStar's infringement and reconfirms the strength of TiVo's Time Warp patent, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. We look forward to full enforcement of our rights in the near term.”
Dish Network responded by saying it was disappointed in the ruling but the 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. This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the TiVo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling. All Dish Network customers can continue to use their DVRs without any interruption or changes.”
Dish Network said it intends to appeal the Federal Circuit’s ruling to the United States Supreme Court.
