Great news today on our long-running patent case against Echostar. This morning, we issued this statement:

We are extremely pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously ruled in our favor in EchoStar’s appeal of the district court judgment of patent infringement, full award of damages and that the injunction, which was stayed pending appeal, was ordered to be reinstated. Today’s ruling is confirmation of the value of TiVo’s IP portfolio, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. TiVo can now continue to focus on its goal to drive greater distribution in both its stand alone and mass distribution efforts.

The market reacted positively, sending TiVo’s share up nearly 30% – woohoo! Later in the day, EchoStar, remaining defiant, had this to say:

We are pleased the Federal Circuit found for us on Tivo’s hardware claims, but are disappointed in the Federal Circuit’s decision on the software claims. The decision, however, will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar’s engineers have developed and deployed ‘next-generation’ DVR software to our customers’ DVRs. This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the Tivo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling.

To which we subsequently responded:

Echostar has made a series of statements over the years related to the infringement of the TiVo patent that has turned out to be both false and misleading. At this point it doesn’t really matter what Echostar says by way of further self-serving statements. It matters what the courts say — and the courts have spoken.

Entertaining, no? Definitely not a dull day in TiVo land!

Posted by Roger at 10:30 PM.