EchoStar (now known as DISH Network Corporation) was dealt yet another blow in its ongoing patent battle with Tivo as the U.S. Appeals Court ruled against them. The dispute involves EchoStar’s alleged infringement of Tivo’s TimeWarp patent, which allows users to record one program while watching another. Tivo applied for the patent in 1998, and it was granted in 2001.

In 2004 Tivo successfully sued EchoStar for its Dish Network DVR, which provided very similar functionality to Tivo’s product. EchoStar was ordered to pay Tivo $73.9M in damages. The company has subsequently appealed the ruling a number of times, but has not been successful in getting it overturned.

The Dish Network has advised customers that the latest rulings will have no effect on their DVR service, stating that they have deployed “next-generation DVR software” that will not infringe on Tivo’s patent. The company has also declared that it intends to appeal the latest ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Dish has a lot more lawyer money than TiVo, and it is going to drag this thing out as long as it can.

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection was the first site to report the news.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

On the online auction giant’s new MicroPlace site, investors can lend as little as $50 to would-be small business owners around the globe

As Blockbuster bails, the online DVD service sees strong third-quarter profits; but margins are slim. Will video downloads make the difference?

The maker of the Sansa, a distant No. 2 to the iPod, has a new way to view downloaded content on a TV. It could turn up the heat on Apple

RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service will become available to TiVo’s 10-12 million United States users, under a new deal to be announced today.

Real’s Rhapsody will allow TiVo users to sign up for the $13 per month service and listen to the more than 3.5 million songs from their TiVo DVR streamed on demand.

TiVo has previously inked content distribution deals with Amazon’s Unbox and Podshow.

More at CrunchGear.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Sony’s gadget wizardry has enabled it to come up with a simple Internet-to-TV bridge, but it will need more content deals to really hook viewers

EchoStar’s $380 million purchase of Sling Media once again raises the question of whether a consumer TV-device company can exist as a standalone entity. History has not been kind to such companies trying to break out from the startup field.  Akimbo anyone?  TiVo has also certainly seen its share of ups and downs (mostly downs). Even the attempts of larger tech companies at combining TVs and computers, such as the Apple TV or Microsoft’s various efforts over the years, haven’t fared any better at gaining massive consumer acceptance.  The consumer-electronics giants and cable companies simply dominate this market.  Given that reality, selling to EchoStar may have been Sling Media’s best option.

Although the company does not disclose exact figures, a Sling Media spokesperson says the startup has sold “hundreds of thousands” of Slingboxes over the past couple years.  So that could be anywhere between 200,000 Slingbox users (which would bring the purchase price to a hefty $1.9 million per user) and 900,000 (which would come to a purchase price of $422,000 per user).

Obviously, that is not the math EchoStar used to justify the purchase.  Because EchoStar, which was already a minority investor in the startup, did not buy Sling Media for its puny number of existing customers.  It bought Sling Media for its place-shifting technology, which allows people to watch whatever is on their TV from a remote location on their laptop.  EchoStar can now integrate that technology into its set-top boxes and has a better chance than Sling Media did to get the number of Slingbox users up well past a million.  Another reason behind the deal may be to combine Sling Media with EchoStar’s other technology assets (set-top boxes, satellites), and split off the resulting, strengthened TV-technology group as a separate business, while dressing up its TV subscription service for a sale to AT&T.  If that happens, then an independent EchoStar TV technology business would be free to sell place-shifting set-top boxes to rivals as well.

Just as the DVR did not take off until DirecTV and EchoStar started pushing the technology to their own customers, I would expect the same thing to happen with Slingboxes. But instead of EchoStar trying to design an inferior version of a Slingbox and push that on its TV subscribers, as it’s done with DVRs, at least this time it is starting out with the best technology up-front.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

College gear is getting more complicated, and the back-to-school season appears recession-proof

Recent investments suggest the chipmaker sees a future beyond the cell phone—and will expand into sensors, TV, and gaming

The TV recording pioneer reports a smaller loss and plans to expand into Mexico, but investors sell down the shares thanks to a weak outlook