ViaSat announced a settlement of its legal dispute with Space Systems/Loral and Loral Space & Communications for breach of contract and patent infringement. In April a US District Court in San Diego determined that SS/L breached its non-disclosure agreement with ViaSat by disclosing proprietary data to SS/L customer and ViaSat competitor Hughes Network Systems. This was used to design Hughes’ Jupiter-1 (now EchoStar XVII) high-capacity satellite.
The jury also found three ViaSat patents to be both valid and infringed by SS/L's design of the Hughes Jupiter-1 satellite. A second lawsuit covering additional ViaSat patents and alleging infringement by additional SS/L satellites, including Jupiter-2, was likely to go to trial in early 2016. Under the terms of this agreement, ViaSat will settle its claims in both suits in exchange for USD 100 million plus interest to be paid to ViaSat through 2016.
