Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:49 PM PT

TiVo Sues AT&T and Verizon for DVR Patent Infringement

TiVo has filed lawsuits against AT&T and Verizon over DVR patent infringements. From TiVo’s earnings press release:

Additionally, today we filed complaints in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas against AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. for infringement of three TiVo patents, including the Time Warp patent. The complaints seek damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction, similar to the one issued by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas against DISH/EchoStar. “We will continue to pursue enforcement where necessary to stop infringement of our intellectual property,” [TiVo CEO Tom] Rogers stated.

The patents in question deal with a “Multimedia Time Warping System,” a “System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams,” and an “Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System,” according to Multichannel News. During TiVo’s earnings call, Rogers said the DVR maker had tried to reach commercial deals with the telcos similar to what it has with cable companies like Comcast and Cox, but was unsuccessful.

TiVo had won an initial $105 million ruling against satellite TV provider DISH/EchoStar over similar infringement complaints. That case continues with legal maneuverings and took a potentially interesting turn earlier this month when the Patent and Trademark Office rejected two of TiVo’s “Time Warp” patent claims in a preliminary review.

Separately, TiVo’s earnings release revealed that its number of total cumulative subscriptions dropped to 3 million, down from 3.6 million during the same quarter last year.

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Topic: Hardware, Legal

Comments (3)

Smells like NTP all over again.

DaveZatz — 4:54 PM on August 26, 2009 Reply
OK, I’ve gotten my post up. What makes this unique from DSH is that both AT&T and Verizon license tech from others. U-Verse is mostly a Microsoft software platform… will be interesting to see how it plays out. More details here and the PACER docs:

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2009-08/tivo-loses-more-customers-sues-att-verizon/

DaveZatz — 6:03 AM on August 27, 2009 Reply
is a web-project, which hold information about recovery operation in New Jersey.

Nabei — 4:08 PM on September 23, 2009 Reply

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