• Forbes, Monday, May 17, 2010 11:05 PM

A special court's decision Friday against TiVo, which pioneered PVRs, in a patent infringement case certainly wasn't welcome news; shares of TiVo were down 40% in trading. In 2004 TiVo sued EchoStar, the Dish parent company, alleging patent infringement. Dish denied the charge, but lost in court.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which deals with patents, said the judge in the case had erred, and while it didn't specifically rule in Dish's favor, it ordered that the court reevaluate the issue. TiVo shareholders stampeded out of the stock because they thought the issue had been settled and were looking forward to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Dish. Tivo currently licenses its technology to other companies.

Should the courts find that Dish could implement TiVo-like functions without violating any TiVo patents, other companies would begin to do the same.

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