
A judge has ordered EchoStar Communications to disable the digital video recorders used by several million subscribers to its Dish Network satellite TV service because they infringe on patents held by TiVo. Thursday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, demands that within 30 days, EchoStar must basically render useless all but 192,708 of the DVR units it has deployed. The decision comes four months after a jury ruled that EchoStar should pay TiVo $73.9 million because it willfully infringed TiVo patents that allow the digital storage of TV programming.