TiVo Sued in Patent Dispute

A lawsuit filed by Microsoft in Jan. 2010 alleges that TiVo infringes two Microsoft patents related to displaying program guide information and to purchasing and delivering video (patent numbers 6,008,803 and 6,055,314). The lawsuit seeks an injunction preventing TiVo from using the patented technology, as well as unspecified damages. In a statement, Microsoft said it is “open to resolving this situation through an intellectual-property licensing agreement.”

The suit grows out of TiVo’s patent dispute with AT&T, which is the largest customer for Microsoft’s Mediaroom Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) technology. (The latest version of Mediaroom is described in “Mediaroom 2.0 Extends IPTV“.) TiVo sued AT&T in Aug. 2009 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, alleging that AT&T’s U-Verse system—which is based on Mediaroom—infringes three TiVo patents (patent numbers 6,233,389, 7,529,465 and 7,493,015). Microsoft petitioned that court to intervene in the case in Jan. 2010, shortly before filing its own suit against TiVo. It appears that Microsoft is entering this dispute so that it can control any litigation surrounding its patents, as opposed to leaving the litigation solely in the hands of AT&T. In addition, Microsoft has previously stepped in when OEMs and partners have been sued over Microsoft technology and has offered indemnification agreements to customers and partners. (Although it’s not clear whether such an agreement is in place for AT&T.)