TiVo, Dish Network, EchoStar Announce Settlement Of Patent Suit

The patent dispute between Dish Network, TiVo, and EchoStar has been raging on for a while now. The last time we spoke about the suit was in late April when the court presiding over the case ruled in TiVo's favor. The ruling to disable offending devices was split 7-5 in favor of disabling. To avoid many potentially angry customers EchoStar and Dish Network has settled the litigation with TiVo, and the settlement was certainly not cheap for them.

TiVo has announced that the settlement in the case resulted in Dish and EchoStar agreeing to pay TiVo $500 million. The initial installment of the settlement payment is $300 million with the remaining $200 million to be distributed to TiVo in six equal installments between 2012 and 2017. The upside to the agreement for Dish and EchoStar is that the settlement sees litigation end between the companies.

More importantly, the settlement dissolves all injunctions against Dish and EchoStar so the device isn't the field can continue to operate, which is very good news for users owning the devices. "We are extremely pleased to reach an agreement with DISH Network and EchoStar which recognizes the value of our intellectual property," said Tom Rogers, president and CEO of TiVo. "The compensation from this settlement, including the resulting reduction in legal expenditures, puts TiVo in an enviable financial and strategic position. This settlement, which brings the total compensation paid by DISH Network for use of TiVo's '389 patent family to over $600 million, demonstrates the significant return afforded to our shareholders by diligent enforcement of TiVo's intellectual property rights. Those efforts will aggressively continue with other parties."