 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to Morac
Re: Whats the bottome line? said by Morac:1. Pay TiVo a licensing fee for each DVR set top box they have deployed. 2. Disable recording on all their deployed DVR set top boxes. 3. Do nothing and get hit with major penalties for every day they ignore the judges ruling. 4. Appeal to the Supreme Court. How this will most likely playout:
If none of the Tivo patents are voided upon re-examination, Dish and Echostar will be in a tough place.
Option #1: Tivo already has them over a barrel and is asking a fee which is too high and so Echostar has balked completely at #1 so far. Paying a $200 million plus fee and penalties is still cheaper while they wait for the final results.
Option #2: Really isn't an option, unless they want to lose millions of customers. This is the reason they haven't disabled the DVR's yet despite being ordered to do so (and the result is this $200 million contempt fine)
Option #3: This is what they are currently doing, but they also have been trying to have some of the Patents they are accused of violating overturned, and also, they've completely redesigned their DVR's to avoid Tivo's patents (but this has proven difficult because of the scope of some of them). It's hardly "do nothing" but in terms of the action it's "We're not turning them off, we'll take the punishment rather then obey."
Option #4: Most likely outcome, but unless some patents are voided or dismissed this is a long shot at best. In the end it may come down to #1 on Tivo's term and a large price hike across the board for Dish subscribers.
Everyone else is next.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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