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TiVo sets stage for new EchoStar fight

Company asks judge to shut down Dish's DVR operation

Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 24, 2006 at midnight

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TiVo, which last month won a $74 million jury verdict against EchoStar for violating patents integral to its digital video recorders, now wants a judge to shut down EchoStar's DVR business altogether.

TiVo filed court papers Monday seeking to permanently ban EchoStar from manufacturing or selling its DVRs that were found by a Texas jury to infringe on TiVo's "time warp" patent that allows viewers to pause, rewind or fast-forward live TV. TiVo also wants EchoStar to disable the 4 million DVRs already installed in Dish Network subscribers' homes.

"Every day that EchoStar sells its infringing DVRs, TiVo loses critical market share," TiVo argued in court papers filed in a Texarkana, Texas, court.

U.S. District Judge David Folsom, who presided over the jury trial, is scheduled to oversee a trial next month over whether the patent can be enforced.

Kathie Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Douglas County-based EchoStar, didn't immediately return a call for comment. The company has vowed to challenge the jury verdict.

Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo introduced its DVR device in 1997, and EchoStar created its own version a few years later. EchoStar made the technology a key selling point and gave the devices away to customers, charging a $6 monthly subscription fee.

TiVo, which sells its DVR device directly to the public and provides its service to DirecTV Group, has posted loses every year since going public in 1999.

TiVo DVRs account for less than one-third of the more than 15 million American homes that have some kind of digital video recorder box.

Forrester Research predicts that DVRs - with or without TiVo's branded service - will be found in nearly half of U.S. households as cable operators and other electronics markers add DVR features to their equipment.

If EchoStar is allowed to continue selling its DVRs, "TiVo risks being marginalized by the time the market matures," TiVo said in its filing.

TiVo's requested injunction would apply to Dish Network's two DVRs currently offered for sale, the DP-625 DVR and high-definition ViP622 DVR, the filing said.

TiVo also wants the judge to order EchoStar to disable the DVR function on all of the models in customer homes via a satellite software update.

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