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TiVo Wins Permanent Injunction Against EchoStar
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Aug 18, 2006 02:23 AM
from the tuning-out dept.
from the tuning-out dept.
ZenFodderBoy writes "It's official! Judge Folsom entered his ruling today granting TiVo nearly $90 million in damages, plus granting a permanent injunction calling for the disabling of nearly all of EchoStar's DVRs within the next 30 days. EchoStar's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal was denied. Additionally, the judge reserves the right to grant additional damages in the future, so treble damages may still be coming. Excellent news for TiVo!"
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Your Rights Online: Injunction Against EchoStar Blocked 109 comments
bestinshow writes "ExtremeTech has the news that a judge has blocked the injunction against Echostar Communications selling its PVRs." From the article: "The ruling was the latest in an ongoing battle between TiVo, one of earliest companies to design personal video recorders, now called digital video recorders or DVRS. 'As a result of the stay EchoStar can continue to sell, and provide to consumers, all of its digital video recorder models,' EchoStar added. 'We continue to believe the Texas decision was wrong, and should be reversed on appeal. We also continue to work on modifications to our new DVRs, and to our DVRs in the field, intended to avoid future alleged infringement.'"
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Stock? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stock? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Stock? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course this would be a setback for the projects but it wouldn't be enough to kill them.
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/. is an editorial factory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:/. is an editorial factory (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I think this is good news for everyone. I have a Dish 625 PVR and I love it. I've always heard how great Tivo was. It's great not just because of the superiority of hard drive recording but it was great because of the Tivo software. The Dish PVRs aren't that bad but I have a feeling that Dish Tivos would be fantastic.
The great thing about the Dish PVRs is they record the mpeg2 stream. They don't have to lose quality in the conversion of analo
Re:/. is an editorial factory (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you may think it's great news that your 625 will be disabled within a month, I, personally, am not looking forward to it.
In all honesty, the DVR feature is the only thing that's made TV service usable as far as I'm concerned. Barely anything we watch is live, and pretty much everything we record is recorded at times we're not around. Speculation that "EchoStar might buy TiVo" strikes me as premature, and doesn't exactly help during the period our bought and paid for hardware ceases to support advertised critical functionality.
And, personally, I'm having difficulty accepting anything that's in the 625 should be patentable. Once you've thinking in terms of a device that automatically stores programs selected from a TV schedule, pretty much everything else the 625 does follows. But whether it is or it isn't, I'm pissed about the consequences of this. Choices have just been limited. People who have bought service and signed into 18 month contracts are being screwed. Whether it's EchoStar or a combination of TiVo and the current patent system that's to blame, this isn't fair, and we are all worse off for it.
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A stupid judgment that penalises customers... (Score:5, Interesting)
What fault is it of the customer, if the vendor from who he purchsaed some product / service is found guilty of patent abuse? If Echostar has abused TiVo's patents and sold a few millions of their products... I think a more equitable judgement ought to be along the lines... like, Echostar to pay TiVo the requisite license money so that existing customers may continue to use their products and services uninterrupted.
A patent should not imply that one single company has exclusive rights to implement, sell and support products based out of the said patent. The true purpose of patents is in fact, to spur innovation... not to build monopolies. Echostar might be directed NOT TO sell future products in violation of patents... it appears UNJUST that existing customers suffer a loss of functionality because of this. What if a patent violation happened in a medicinal drug? Patients must vomit already ingested medicines and die?
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Re:A stupid judgment that penalises customers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents don't imply that, they are that. But I agree that you're quite right about the injustice of the injunction, and about the most obvious way of settling the matter without injuring third parties.
In the software realm, if, to pick an example close to the hearts of many in the legal profession, WordPerfect were suddenly found to have violated a patent, would it be appropriate to disable all copies of WordPerfect and force users to purchase another product, just so that they could read from and write to their existing files? And how could such users determine that the product they'd been forced to buy wouldn't in turn have a self-destruct injunction filed against it next month?
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Re:A stupid judgment that penalises customers... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:A stupid judgment that penalises customers... (Score:4, Insightful)
The injunction gives bite to the verdict... now Echostar has to either pay up what the verdict says...or work on a settlement agreement... of course, it still can and will appeal, but in the meantime, it cannot continue to infringe Tivo's patent... else, without an injuction option, a guilty verdict in any patent infringement trial would be meaningless if the infringer could continue to well, infringe...
neither the medicinal drug nor another poster's Wordperfect scenarios are pertinent analogies... medicine already ingested is obviously not the same as a service provided by a company... the drug company has no more rights in the sold drugs... if anything, an injunction would prohibit such an infringer from producing and selling any more drugs, but of course, whether a court would order an injunction against a drug company producing a drug, a court would consider other factors in that type of scenario, such as whether the drug is taken for life/health threatening reasons (a cancer drug vs. an erection drug)...and whether there are alternative sources for similar drugs (the actual patent holder produces the drug)...
remember, Echostar's dvr is a service...the customer does not own the dvr software, Echostar does... so the injuction prevents them from continuing their patent infringing service... customers may suffer (although, what do they really suffer? nothing life/health threatening, unless missing Laguna Beach or another retarded episode of The Hills would create mind crushing depression leading to a surge of bulemia among silly girls), but that is Echostar's fault, not Tivo's...
So, the judgment is not stupid...its a tool to enforce the verdict and stop a convicted infringer from continuing their illegal activity
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Re:/. is an editorial factory (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh, I'm a happy customer of both Dish Network and TiVo and definitely think this is a good thing, including for consumers and even Dish Network customers.
I chose to pair a SA (Stand Alone) TiVo over a DishPVR for a multitude of reasons:
Of course I lose out too, most notably with occasional channel change mishaps that cause the wrong channel to be recorded as well as the lack of ability to record the digital stream right off the satellite.
Now I have two TiVos
I've been following this case for a while, TiVo pproached Echostar seeking to license TiVo's technology. They even left a demo unit with them (which Echostar "lost"), then Echostar amazingly came out with new DishPVRs that were cheap knockoffs of the TiVo.
If there was ever a case of blatant patent infiringement this is it, umlike the NTP/RIM debacle where a patent troll was exploiting an obviously BS patent where they didn't even make a product, in this case Echostar ripped off TiVos technology in order to compete with them.
We mustn't confuse patent reform with patent abolition, though obviously some people (certianly some /. users) believe patents should be abolished. If every company that came up with an idea could get is usurped by someone else it would only be the evil megacorps of the world that could succeed, the little guys would get destoyed before they could get a foothold in the market.
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Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This
This won't be good for tivo in the long run (Score:4, Insightful)
Tivo's time will come.
Re:This won't be good for tivo in the long run (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:This won't be good for tivo in the long run (Score:5, Insightful)
That brings up somewhat obvious questions about the applicability and utility of our patent system. TiVO patented something in 1997 that was novel and non-obvious. However, it would have been both obvious and easy 5 years later. So, they get 17 years of monopoly for being ahead of their time.
I dig it though, I have friends who work there, and they could use the money...
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Re:This won't be good for tivo in the long run (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This won't be good for tivo in the long run (Score:4, Informative)
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Win for Tivo - Lose for Customers (Score:4, Insightful)
There isn't much information on this finding, but I'd take a guess and say that customers that have signed up for EchoStar's service may be in for a rude shock when their PVR stops working.
I'm up for rooting for Tivo but I guess this is business, and if Tivo couldn't find a way to sell their products to the broadcast vendors without going to litigation it makes for a difficult times.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
i wouldn't even be surprised if directv helped fund tivo's legal battle, considering the mess echostar (directv's only american satellite competitor) is in now. their existance could very well be up in the air now.
enough consumer backlash and negative pr and echostar will be ripe for a takeover again. we are four years re
Re:Win for Tivo - Lose for Customers (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, Echostar got what they deserved. It's a shame their customers may have to suffer for it, but that's the price of protecting the inventors.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO its about time Dish has to own up.
Re:Win for Tivo - Lose for Customers (Score:5, Informative)
RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMER AGREEMENT [dishnetwork.com]
I guess making it so it doesn't record anything is just a change of "features"... it's still a clock, right?Parent
More informative Reuters article (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This will do nothing but harm the consumer & T (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just a Technical Support Representative, but I've been reading about this case long before I worked there.
The initial ruling, I applauded. Yes, Echostar screwed up with Tivo. Yes, I think they should have to pay for that mistake, in monetary terms. Tivo earned at least that much.
However - DVR functionality at this point is just about commonplace - Dish/Echostar's DVRs perform the same functions that Tivo, and 50 other competing products do, and to tell Echostar that it can no longer compete in this now-established market is tantamount to handing the company over to a Firing Squad.
Nevermind the fact that there are now millions of Dish Network customers that are using DVR recievers, that will find out about this case, find that they've lost the functionality that they have been paying for every month - and place the blame squarely on - guess who? - Tivo.
Now, I like Tivo - and I hope they succeed, and again, I'm more than happy to see them monetarily compensated for the situation. But this is not punishing Echostar/Dish - this is only punishing the consumers who have bought those devices and who use them every day, and continue to do so.
On a personal note - this lawsuit will make my life a living hell, becuase those millions of customers will be calling me to explain why they can no longer use the functionality that they signed up for. The first time I recieve a phonecall asking why our DVR service has disappeared and why they cannot use the hard drive on the device they paid for, is the day that I turn in my resignation.
Re:This will do nothing but harm the consumer & (Score:5, Insightful)
This is, by the way, how basic patents work. There's no "it's popular, so you don't have to pay to license the patent" rule. For example, Motorolla has a patent on putting a heat sink on a transistor, and every other electronics company pays them for it. There's an engineer that has the patent on on-screen programmable VCR's, and he gets paid for every single VCR manufactured. The way the world works, that engineer doesn't have a monopoly on on-screen programmable VCR's, but every VCR manufacturer has to negotiate a license before they can (legally) ship their product.
This won't affect Echostar customers, or technical support representatives, unless Echostar decides that they'd rather screw their customers than cut a deal with TiVo. At that point, resigning is a reasonable course of action.
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Re:This will do nothing but harm the consumer & (Score:5, Insightful)
A little misdirected anger?
Maybe you have some other reason to be pissed at Tivo. Don't be mad at Tivo becuase Echostar sold you something they stole from Tivo and got caught.
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Re:This will do nothing but harm the consumer & (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting dilemma for Bell ExpressVu customers.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Working for Cowboys (Score:5, Funny)
The Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I could have told you that years ago. That's the main reason I put together my own DVR about 4 years ago, rather than buying (and hacking) a Tivo or ReplayTV unit.
It has worked out more wonderfully than I could have imagined. The 1 week of taming Linux TV-tuner modules looks so insignificant in hindsight, and is really a one-time thing, as I've set-up DVRs for others in under an hour (each).
No messy, stupid tricks or hacks needed to get
It may be excellent news for TiVo, but . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Dish to Disable DVRs ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dish to Disable DVRs ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would not be a first time for Dish.
The Dish Network management knows how to use their customers as leverage. Every time there is a contract dispute between a program provider and Dish, they make sure that it is clear to the customer how to contact that program provider and pitch a bitch.
I would be surprised if a similar tactic didn't get applied here.
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DISABLE YOUR AUTOMATIC UPDATES (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DISABLE YOUR AUTOMATIC UPDATES (Score:4, Informative)
What good is that going to do when they stop sending out the show listings?
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Re:this isn't that bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This helps encourage innovation by protecting the innovators from competition that could prevent them from recovering development costs. So in the end it does hel
Re:Patents expire (Score:5, Interesting)
Your UID is very high, so I'll excuse that remark.
That is how it works in theory. In practice:
1) The patentee gets a patent on something he didn't actually invent, but was first to file.
2) Patents are granted on mundane, obvious inventions. (Queue the "obvious invention on a computer/Internet" patents) These are granted because patent examiners don't have much technical expertise in the field and have limited time to check for prior art.
3) If you do actually invent something non-obvious, and the big guys infringe on your patent, you'll bankrupt yourself via legal fees trying to get them to pay.
Dare I say yes?
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Re:Patents expire (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, I think we can skip those Johnny-come-latelys, newbie.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Disagree.
Agree.
Argee.
Agree.
Agree.
Re:This is about Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically the number one claim seems to be on seeking in an open file if the file is a multimedia stream. In Linux language:
cat
mplayer
Those two lines would instantly infringe on tivos patent.
The next claim is even fruitier.
cat
cat
mplayer
I have a hard time beliving tivo actully did this first, and even if they did where is the invention. When I first got a TV card a couple of years ago this is what I did because it was the easiest way to get the media to play. Needless to say, but I didn't feel like I invented something. Maybe I missed something about tivos patent, I'm not a lawyer.
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Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How did this statement get modded as "Flamebait"? It is a basic business axiom.
TiVo won a lawsuit, but they didn't win any new customers yet.
Re:Quick ? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_85.html [tivo.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)