TiVo Wins $74 Million in Patent Suit Against EchoStar

While a company has every right to protect it's intellectual property, these are the types of lawsuits are rarely good for the consumer. According to ABCNews:

A federal jury awarded TiVo Inc. nearly $74 million in damages Thursday in a swift ending to a patent-infringement lawsuit against EchoStar Communications Corp., the parent of the Dish satellite television provider.

TiVo got most of the $87 million in damages it sought in a case that one of its lawyers called "life or death" for the company that was among the first to sell devices to pause and rewind live television.

Here's the part of the story that scares me the most:

Those rivals have taken sales away from TiVo by offering boxes and service at lower prices. Zinn would not rule out suing cable companies that use other boxes, but he called it a last resort.

I don't believe the "last resort" thing one bit. In this day and age, suing over patent infringement has become more profitable than selling products.

While I'm a big fan of TiVo and want them to succeed, if they get too aggressive, they could do a lot of damage to a growing DVR industry. If that's the case, the consumer will lose because of less competition resulting in less choices and higher prices. Let's keep our fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

At ABCNews.com

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