TiVo Scores a Significant Patent Win. Higher DVR Prices?
By Andrew McLaughlin |
April 13th, 2006 
The jury in the TiVo vs. Echostar case apparently must all be big TiVo fans because they just handed a major victory to TiVo in their patent infringement case. The victory basically validates TiVo’s claim that their technology to enable a viewer to record one TV program while watching another is proprietary and patentable. This could mean big problems for pretty much anyone in the DVR business. This could mean that if you currently rent a DVR from your cable company, TiVo may have the right to claim licensing fees for the ‘watch and record’ feature that is pretty much standard on all DVRs. These fees would no doubt be passed on to consumers.
DIRECTV is also a big winner in this case since they just recently extended their agreement with TiVo at economics similar to their existing deal. The new agreement also states that each party agreed to not assert patent rights against the other. I’m sure the executives over at DIRECTV are having a sigh of relief after hearing of this outcome.
As should be expected, Echostar plans to appeal this judgment and exhaust their legal options prior to conceding defeat. The next few months should be interesting in the word of DVRs and PVRs.
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