Here's one very scary sound for the folks at DISH Network: The ticking of U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom's clock. The Judge has ruled that DISH has until April 30th to settle its patent dispute with TiVo . If it doesn't, DISH DVRs could well go dark ... and, as the company has admitted in its own court filings, DISH will likely lose "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of subscribers."

As noted by Bernstein Research's Craig Moffett, there's a slim chance that DISH can get an en banc re-hearing of its latest Appeals Court loss. But, based on historical averages, Moffett puts the odds on that at about 3%. (The odds are even longer for a Supreme Court hearing.) Further, Moffett notes, the Court's ruling "ordered a shut down, not a software solution." So you can pretty much forget the workaround hopes.

So unless the courts come through on the en banc Hail Mary ... or unless DISH somehow settles with TiVo ... or unless, as recent rumors have suggested, DISH initiates a purchase of TiVo ... Moffett notes that DISH's approximate 8 million "infringing DVRs will have to be disabled one way or the other." And that alarm clock rings at midnight on April 30th.
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