Comments on: Dish Researching Hostile TiVo Takeover?

By: ipjd

ipjd — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:50:34 +0000

Actually pfriend, it has yet to be determined whether the VIP622, VIP722 and VIP922 are more than colorably different than the adjudicated infringing DVRs. Dish will have to let the courts decide if they don’t infringe. There are 4 million known infringing DVRs and possibily 3 million more.

The ruling clearly states that any attempted work-arounds hereafter must be approved by the court. That is very onerous task for Dish. But remember, Dish was found in contempt of court.

Tivo could have a shareholder lawsuit if they don’t settle or if they don’t accept a reasonable buyout offer. I don’t think putting Dish out of business is in their best interest just to flex their muscles.

Nothing that Charlie Ergen would do would surprise me at this point.

By: EE MOSS

EE MOSS — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:03:50 +0000

GREAT INFORMATION–

THE LEVERAGE THAT THIS WILL GIVE TIYO IS ALL IMPORTANT . THEY MAY JUST ALLOW DISH TO CONTINUE
IF THEY WILL PAY $5.00 A BOX,
MAY BE EVEN HIGHER .

By: Davis

Davis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:17:22 +0000

Good point pfriend, but a minor technicality. TiVo is expected to raise the issue of new DVRs at their next hearing and given their track record on these issues, I’ve got no reason to doubt that they’ll be able to expand the injunction to cover Dish’s current receivers.

By: pfriend

pfriend — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:13:51 +0000

Please re-read the language of the injunction you quoted above. Dish is not prohibited from replacing the infrining DVR’s with DVR’s that are not covered under the court order. Their newer DVR’s that were not part of the original lawsuit are not covered under the injunction and could be used to replace the infringing DVR’s in the hands of customers. Of course, this is a lot of DVR’s. Echostar states that Dish has an unusually high number of set top boxes in inventory right now. These could be primarily DVR’s. It is still pretty far fetched that they could replace all the infringing DVR’s and not settle with TIVO.

By: Davis

Davis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:16:10 +0000

Thanks for the input Dave, hard to get at this type of data. Would be very interesting to know what articles other bloggers are finding Echostar visiting.