The broadcaster filed an appeal today (read it here) against the denial of its request for a preliminary injunction against Dish Network‘s ad-skipping AutoHop and Primetime Anywhere features. Fox’s heavily redacted filing now moves the matter from U.S. District Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District. On Tuesday in a sealed ruling, Judge Dolly Gee refused Fox’s attempt to shut the ad-skipping features down as the two sides head to trial later this year. In another side to the Autohop legal battle, Judge Gee yesterday refused Dish’s attempt to have NBC’s contract claims against them dismissed. As well as Fox, CBS and NBC also filed copyright infringement suits against Dish. The satcaster was hoping Gee would let them have the court venue moved to New York. Dish filed in federal court there in May seeking a judgment on whether its ad-skipping feature is legal.
Introduced in May by Dish, AutoHop allows subscribers to leap past commercials in programs that have been recorded off network TV the day before. Dish called the judge’s ruling against Fox this week a “victory for common sense and consumer choice.” Fox didn’t agree and said Wednesday it would appeal. Today’s filing comes even though part of Gee’s ruling agreed that Dish likely committed copyright infringement and broke the contact between the two companies by making copies of Fox’s programming. Gee’s decision, which was sealed so both sides could remove trade secret material, came after both sides argued their cases in front of her on September 21.
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