You may have seen ads for the Dish Network claiming its DVR service is actually “better than TiVo.” What you may not know is that they’ve been ordered to stop selling their DVR service after losing a patent struggle with the very company they claim to be better than. As a result, a judge has ordered Dish to pay TiVo a sum of $200 million as punishment.

About $110 million of that punishment actually accounts for profits Dish reaped as a result of patent infringement. The other $90 million is the slap on the wrist. Dish has already paid out nearly $193 million for previous infringement, bringing the grand total of damages to nearly $400 million. Dish says it plans to appeal this most recent ruling.

As you probably know, TiVo really needs the money. A few years ago it had been essentially left for dead. TiVo reported its first profitable year in some time early this year, but that was largely due to a few new contracts and some big lawsuit money from EchoStar. This win for Dish would keep the company healthily in the black, but as more viewers take advantage of web content, we’ll likely see TiVo struggling in the near future.

Source: Bloomberg