UPDATE 1-Court awards Tivo $190 mln in EchoStar patent case

Tue Jun 2, 2009 6:41pm EDT
 
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* EchoStar ordered to disable DVR in infringing boxes

* EchoStar found in contempt of court injunction

LOS ANGELES, June 2 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas awarded set-top box maker TiVo Inc (TIVO.O) about $190 million in damages on Tuesday in a long-running patent infringement dispute with DISH Network Corp (DISH.O) and EchoStar Corp (SATS.O).

U.S. District Judge David Folsom also ordered EchoStar to disable an infringing function on all but about 193,000 digital video recorders placed with subscribers.

Folson also found that EchoStar violated an injunction he put in place after a Texas jury found the company infringed TiVo's patent with several digital video recorder models by implementing new "workaround" technology that TiVo claimed still infringed.

The court set a June 26 hearing on potential sanctions against EchoStar.

In his final order, Folsom ruled that TiVo should recover from EchoStar $73.9 million plus $15.7 million in interest on the patent infringement claims, plus $103.1 million in damages plus interest accrued during the stay of the injunction.

EchoStar also was ordered to inform the court before it attempts to implement another "design-around" of the patent it infringed.

In a statement, TiVo said it was "extremely gratified by the Court's well reasoned and thorough decision, in which it rejected EchoStar's attempted workaround claim regarding the TiVo patent, found EchoStar to be in contempt of court and ordered the permanent injunction fully enforced."

DISH and EchoStar will appeal the court's decision and file a motion to stay the order with a federal appeals court, the companies said in a statement.

DISH was formerly known as EchoStar Communications Corp. It spun off its technology assets over a year ago, including its set-top box division, to create EchoStar Corp. (Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by Andre Grenon)

 

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