A federal judge in Virginia has ordered Verizon to shell out more than $11 million per month to continue offering video-on-demand services to its FiOS IPTV subscribers.
ActiveVideo, which claims the communications giant is infringing on patents, was awarded $115 million by a jury this past summer; interest has now raised the payment to more than $139 million, according to RapidTV News.
Verizon, which is appealing the verdict, has been told to pay $11 million, or $2.74 per FiOS TV subscriber, per month, starting in December. The judge says Verizon has until May 2012 to figure out a way around ActiveVideo's technology or risk being forced to discontinue its VOD service.
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that ActiveVideo licenses its technology to Cablevision Systems, which uses it to power its CloudTV service, a major Verizon competitor.
"ActiveVideo thinks that if Verizon ceased infringing, Cablevision’s market share would increase and its subscriber base for CloudTV would also increase," wrote U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson in his opinion.
Verizon has said throughout that it doesn't directly compete with ActiveVideo and shouldn't face a deadline for compliance. The communications giant claims it's been working on the issue since March.
