Awards aren’t exactly the same thing as checks, as this has been going on a long while now, and will go on a while longer. But here’s the latest. TiVo won a court order that according to the judge will result in about $200 million in damages from Dish Network and EchoStar. This has dragged out a while now, and TiVo was actually requesting $1 billion (one billion dollars!) which the Judge said was unreasonable.
Dish and EchoStar said they were pleased the judge rejected Tivo’s request to award the larger amount and that it found that any violation of the injunction was not willful.
“While we disagree that any amount of sanctions was warranted, the decision confirms our belief that we designed around Tivo’s patent in good faith. We believe that we ultimately will prevail on appeal,” the company said.
The interest on the 200 million judgment will add more to the costs if Dish loses on appeal. I believe Dish felt they needed the DVR technology to stay competitive and likely figured these costs as just another cost of doing business. How many Dish subscribers would they have lost without a DVR. I have used both DirecTV and Dish DVRs as well as Tivo and still feel Tivo has the better software. I now have four Directv DVRs and one Tivo and plan to get the new HD Tivo for Directv when available, but do find the HD Directv DVRs to work well. Directv has purchased RealTv and their technology so they avoided the problems Dish got into with from Tivo.
I still use a VCR and save a lot of money!