Today a jury in U.S. Federal Court in Utah has decided that DISH must pay $469 million over its commercial-skipping technology that infringed on two different patents.
With this ruling DISH must pay ClearPlay $469 million over its Hopper set-top boxes. The one good news for DISH is that the jury did rule that DISH did not intentionally infringe on ClearPlay’s patents as it tried to argue.
This lawsuit first started back in 2014 over the AutoHop feature on DISH DVRs. Now after a very long fight back and forth, DISH was found to be in violation of ClearPlay’s patents.
Recently DISH won a patent case against Peloton and iFit over the use of streaming technology. This win for DISH means it has blocked the import of its products into the United States.
The fight between DISH, Sling TV Peloton, and iFit started back in 2021. DISH accused iFit and Peloton of using technology it had patents for with their workout equipment. The ITC Chief Administrative Law Judge Clack Cheney sided with DISH and has agreed to block the import of Peloton and iFit products.
DISH is also struggling to fully recover from a recent cyber breach that knocked many of its websites offline for the last few weeks.