Dish and EchoStar also said they will offer another “design-around” to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; that court said the last effort still infringed. Even so, it’s hard to get away from the idea that Charlie Ergen’s companies are just avoiding the inevitable. Bernstein’s Craig Moffett puts it this way: “What is at stake is nothing less than their ability to continue to offer DVRs. And without DVRs… well, you can fill in the blank here, but it wouldn’t be pretty.” Continuing this losing streak in court means disabling millions of DVRs and paying hundreds of millions to TiVo—along with the considerable costs of constant redesigns and litigation. The alternative is a settlement for license fees that will cost a lot more now, but will end the court battles and continue the monthly subscription dollars DVRs bring in.

SEE ALSO: Echostar To Pay TiVo Another $103 Million In Patent Case

15 engineers for 8,000 hours: EchoStar argued, among other things, that the changes made were enough to keep it from being in violation—and if, not, its efforts to find a workaround that didn’t infringe should be enough to ward off a contempt judgment and other penalties. Not so, writes the majority. “We reject EchoStar’s argument that evidence of its good faith suffices to protect it from any finding of contempt. EchoStar argues that it paid 15 engineers to spend 8000 hours on the redesign, which took a year. Similarly, it stresses the fact that it obtained an opinion of noninfringement from a respected patent law firm. It further contends that the redesign compromised performance in order to avoid infringement of TiVo’s patent, giving it a product inferior to what it previously had. ... We disagree and conclude that EchoStar misreads our law.’

Thanks to Dave Zatz, we’re including the full ruling below. The majority opinion includes a particularly lucid account of how we got here for those of you looking for more details.

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