DISH NETWORK AND ECHOSTAR TO PAY TIVO $500 MILLION TO SETTLE LAWSUIT

Dish Network, EchoStar and TiVo have come to a settlement on their long running patent dispute (since 2006) that will see the satellite company pay $500 million to settle all ongoing litigation. We stopped covering the various court judgements in this case last year as each side continued to file one stay and injunction after another, but this time it's finally over. The most recent court judgement came April 20th in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and found EchoStar in contempt of an earlier injunction despite modifications to its DVR software.

The companies have licensed certain patents to each other, including the infamous Time Warp patent that was at the heart of the dispute. Details are in the press release after the break, but TiVo's scored an upfront $300 million cash payment (Dish Network is also reporting today it added 58,000 subscribers and had a net income of $549 million last quarter, we guess there was some loose change rolling around after its Blockbuster and DBSD purchases), with the remaining $200 million to be paid out between 2012 and 2017.