By: Sharon Urias, Esq.
TiVo Inc., based in Alviso, California, announced last week that it has reached a deal in its patent lawsuit against Cisco, Motorola and Time Warner Cable just in time to avoid a court trial.
TiVo sued the three companies over infringement of its pioneering digital video recorder technology.
In the agreement reached between TiVo and the three companies, Google Inc. – Google bought Motorola in 2012 – and Cisco Systems Inc., will make a lump-sum payment of $490 million to TiVo, with Cisco responsible for $294 million of that sum. TiVo will also enter into patent licensing deals with Google, Cisco and Arris Group Inc. Google sold Motorola’s set-top making unit to Arris earlier this year.
TiVo has been in litigation with pay TV companies over the past several years alleging these companies were using its patented technology in DVRs. The company has reached agreements in similar cases with Dish Network Corp., AT&T Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc., as well. In all, TiVo has garnered more than $1.6 billion from patent lawsuits over its DVR technology in recent years.
Unfortunately for TiVo, the settlement it received in its last patent infringement case was much less than investors had expected, and because of this, the company’s shares fell by eighteen percent. TiVo has struggled to make money in recent years, and has posted annual losses in eight of the past ten years.
After the settlement, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said, “We are pleased to reach an agreement that brings our pending litigation to an end and further underscores the significant value our distribution partners derive from TiVo’s technological innovations.”
Both Motorola Mobility, Cisco and Time Warner said they were satisfied with the deal.
