Satellite : Dish Asks Appeal Court to Allow Recording-Service Use (Update2)

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Dish Asks Appeal Court to Allow Recording-Service Use (Update2)


By William McQuillen

(Bloomberg) -- Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. asked a federal appeals court to throw out a judge’s order that the companies stop using a digital-video recording service that he said infringes a TiVo Inc.[/COLOR] patent.
Attorneys for Dish, the second-biggest U.S. satellite- television provider, today tried to convince a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington that it has changed its technology enough to no longer infringe TiVo’s patent. TiVo claimed the changes weren’t sufficient.
TiVo, a pioneer of digital-video recording services, won a 2006 trial that Dish infringed its patent, and the verdict was upheld on appeal. Dish continued to provide the service, saying it made alterations to avoid TiVo’s invention.
U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, sided with TiVo in June, ordering Dish and EchoStar to shut down the DVR service and awarding $192.7 million in damages against Dish. The appeals court later said it would allow Dish’s customers with digital-video recorders to continue using the service while company appealed Folsom’s ruling.
Folsom ordered Dish in September to pay about $200 million to TiVo for contempt of an order that it stop providing the DVR service.
TiVo is now urging the appeals court to stop Dish, claiming to be losing business while Dish profits from the TiVo invention. The three-judge appeals panel didn’t say today when it will rule.
EchoStar runs the digital set-top box manufacturing and satellite services businesses that were part of Dish before the Englewood, Colorado-based companies split