Dish Liable For $469M Penalty For Infringing Patents, US Federal Court Jury Rules

DISH Network Corp DISH must pay $469 million for infringing two parental-control technology maker ClearPlay Inc patents related to filtering material from streaming video, under a U.S. federal court jury ruling last Friday.
The jury found that ClearPlay's patents covered Dish's AutoHop feature for skipping commercials on its Hopper set-top boxes, Reuters reports citing court documents.
Though jurors found that Dish's technology infringed ClearPlay's patent rights, they refused ClearPlay's argument that Dish copied its technology deliberately.
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Dish proposed to contest the verdict.
ClearPlay's technology lets users filter out adult content from DVDs and streaming videos.
ClearPlay prosecuted Dish in 2014. ClearPlay alleged that AutoHop's technology for cutting commercials from DVR content violates its patents.
Dish said that AutoHop works differently from ClearPlay's patented technology. Dish also said the patents are invalid, arguing they are apparent based on earlier inventions or cover abstract ideas.
Dish held $2.6 billion in cash and equivalents as of December 31.
Price Action: DISH shares closed lower by 2.37% at $10.28 on Monday.