Supreme Court Declines EchoStar Appeal; TiVo to Get $104M

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 6, 2008 - 8:47am.

Alviso, Calif. - The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal lodged by DISH Network operator EchoStar Communications (NASD: DISH) of a federal appeals court ruling that found the company committed willful patent infringement against TiVo (NASD: TIVO), meaning EchoStar will now be forced to pay TiVo approximately $104 million in damages. EchoStar said in a statement that the ruling was expected, and that it has the money to pay the damages in an escrow account and will release it to TiVo in the next few days.

"The Supreme Court's decision, however, does not impact our software design-around, which has been placed in DISH DVRs subject to the district court's injunction, and our customers can continue using their DISH DVRs," EchoStar said.

"We believe that the design-around does not infringe Tivo's patent and that Tivo's pending motion for contempt should be denied."

"We look forward to the expeditious receipt of damages awarded by the District Court...and remain confident that the District Court will enforce the injunction and award further damages from EchoStar's continued infringement of our Time Warp patent," TiVo said in a statement.