TiVo takes on Cisco in patent knock down
DVR battles keep lawyers in business
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Cisco's woes in consumer-land have taken a new twist, with TiVo alleging the networking giant's DVR set-top boxes, supplied to telcos, infringe TiVo’s patents.
The complaint filed last Monday in a Texas Federal Court claims that the Cisco boxes infringe on patents that make the playback of time-shifted TV possible.
TiVo also claims that Cisco has had full knowledge of at least three of its disputed patents since 2010 following the vendor’s involvement in TiVo’s prior and separate case against AT&T.
In late May, Cisco filed a pre-emptive strike against TiVo stating that during licensing discussions TiVo had indicated that it did not want to broadly license TiVo technology to Cisco as it would interfere with its ability to assert its patents in separate suits against Cisco’s customers.
TiVo has been embroiled in various patent disputes for over seven years of litigation to get compensation for its IP and is currently in the throes of litigation with Motorola and pending a court tussle with Verizon.
In its most recent guidance, TiVo anticipates that its net loss will blow out by US$30m in the current quarter due to “substantial sequential percentage increases” in litigation costs and higher marketing spend. ®
COMMENTS
Another Bleak House
Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House, did he have an insight into the everlasting litigation society where the only winner is the lawyer and legal system?
So... TiVo claims it has patents on recording? Trying to give Apple a run for their money I see.
Re: Paging all Tivo owners!
I've owned two TiVo units since August of 2000 (a Series 1 and a TiVo HD). There are two ways to buy it: You can month-to-month it for (I think) $15/mo or pay an up-front "lifetime subscription" fee of (again I think) $350. This is on top of the $50-$200 price for the unit itself. The service is required to operate the device as it provides all the TV schedule info.
It works like a VCR in the same way that a laser printer works like Gutenberg's movable-type press.
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