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''TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp.'' is a case stretching from 2004 to 2011, which took place in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. TiVo Inc. sued EchoStar Corp. claiming patent infringement of a DVR technology. The issues addressed during litigation included patent infringement, wording of injunctions, infringing product redesign, contempt of court orders, and contempt sanctions. Ultimately, the court held that EchoStar Corp. had indeed infringed TiVo Inc's patent and was in contempt of court for noncompliance of an injunction. The parties reached a settlement wherein EchoStar Corp. paid TiVo Inc. a licensing fee. Further, the court replaced the established contempt test with a single step test. The simplified test makes it more difficult for patent holders to prove contempt as a result of repeat infringement. ==Overview== In 2004, TiVo Inc. sued the consortium of companies known as EchoStar Corp. (EchoStar Communications Corporation, EchoStar DBS Corporation, EchoStar Technologies Corporation, Echosphere Limited Liability Company, and EchoStar Satellite LLC, and Dish Network Corporation) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging they infringed various claims of the “Multimedia Time Warping System” patent (U.S. Patent 6,233,389 or ‘389 patent) with their line of competing digital video recorders (DVRs). As described in U.S. Patent 6,233,389, TiVo claims a system for parsing real-time television metadata in an external ASIC. TiVo's system either uses the metadata embedded in an MPEG2 transport stream or generates similar metadata for analog broadcasts using the information provided by North American Broadcast Teletext Standard. The metadata is used to determine when specific events occur. Saving the event log makes it possible for the TiVo system to perform the following operations: "reverse, fast forward, play, pause, index, fast/slow reverse play, and fast/slow play."〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6,233,389.PN.&OS=PN/6,233,389&RS=PN/6,233,389 U.S. Patent No. 6,233,389 )〕 One novel aspect of TiVo's '389 patent is the ASIC implementation. By dedicating a specialized processing unit to event detection, the application processor can be used for other tasks. TiVo's patent refers to their event coprocessor as the "MediaSwitch." A jury found EchoStar Corp’s products infringed TiVo Inc’s patent, resulting in the court issuing a permanent injunction against EchoStar Corp.〔''(TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., No. 2006-1574 (Fed. Cir., January 31, 2008). )''〕〔''(TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., No. 2009-1374 (Fed. Cir., March 4, 2010). )''〕〔''(TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., No. 2009-1374 (Fed. Cir. April 20, 2011) (en banc). )''〕 EchoStar Corp. appealed the judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Upon review, the Federal Circuit reversed the judgment of infringement due to the hardware claims; however, the court affirmed the judgment of infringement due to the software claims. The District Court's permanent injunction, stayed during the appeal proceeding, was placed back into effect.〔 Soon after the appeal concluded, TiVo Inc. motioned to hold EchoStar Corp in contempt of the permanent injunction. The District Court utilized the two-part test for patent infringement established in ''KSM Fastening Systems, Inc. V. H.A. Jones Company, Inc.'' 〔''(KSM Fastening Systems, Inc. V. H.A. Jones Company, Inc. No. 84-1568 (Fed. Cir., October 29, 1985). )''〕 The crux of this test involved determining whether there is “more than a colorable difference” between the original infringing product and the redesign. EchoStar claimed significant changes to their DVR system in order to be compliant with the ruling. The key changes to the system were replacing the infringing event detection system with "start code detection was replaced by statistical estimation, a method which EchoStar characterized as an indexless system and a brute-force search method." The court determined that EchoStar Corp’s software redesign still infringed TiVo Inc. ‘389 patent; thus, EchoStar was held in contempt of the Infringement Provision of the permanent injunction. Furthermore, the District Court held that EchoStar Corp never complied with the Disablement Provision of the permanent injunction. Therefore, EchoStar Corp was held in contempt and sanctioned.〔〔''(TiVo Inc. v. Dish Network Corp., Civil Action No. 2:04-CV-01 (E.D. Tex., June 2, 2009). )''〕 EchoStar Corp. appealed the judgment of contempt to the Federal Circuit. The court was unmoved by EchoStar Corp’s arguments and affirmed the District Court’s judgment with a 2–1 ruling, EchoStar then motioned for a rehearing en banc. Upon review, the en banc Federal Circuit determined the KSM test was unworkable and instituted a new test for post-infringement contempt proceedings. The en banc Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the judgment on the Infringement Provision of the permanent injunction. However, the judgment of contempt with respect to the violation of the Disablement Provision was affirmed. Thus, EchoStar was held to be in contempt of the permanent injunction with a 7–5 ruling.〔 On April 29, 2011, the companies reached a $500 million settlement whereby EchoStar Corp. agreed to license DVR technology from TiVo Inc. In addition, all pending litigation was to be dismissed with prejudice and all injunctions dissolved. However, the en banc Federal Circuit appeal was not dismissed because a decision was reached before the settlement. Consequently, the parties were “free upon remand…to request that the District Court dismiss the complaint and vacate its previously imposed sanctions” due to the settlement. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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