Dish Network would “suffer more” from an injunction barring its...
Dish Network would “suffer more” from an injunction barring its AutoHop commercial-skipping feature than ABC would suffer “without one,” Dish said in court papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC have filed parallel…
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contributory infringement suits against Dish seeking to have AutoHop barred, and Dish has countersued for a declaratory judgment that AutoHop is legal. Being forced to disable AutoHop would deal Dish a “devastating blow,” the pay-TV provider said. Dish would suffer “severe, immediate hardship in the form of damaged customer relations, lost good will, and other costs,” it said. Launching a new product “is always a risky proposition,” Dish said in the filing, the public version of which was heavily redacted to hide Dish’s competitive secrets, including how much the company has spent bringing AutoHop to market and how many customers subscribe to the feature. If AutoHop were to be “enjoined now, the investment will effectively be lost,” it said. Dish also “will be forced to mount a massive campaign” to notify users that AutoHop will no longer work. “That process itself will be costly, but the aftermath will be far costlier,” Dish said. “Some users will demand refunds or downgrade their service,” it said. “Others will cancel their service completely,” and sign up with Dish’s competitors, it said.