TiVo has announced a renewal of its patent licensing agreement with Samsung.
The deal covers technologies used for video discovery in Samsung tablets and smart phones.
“We are proud to extend our licensing agreement with Samsung and to further enhance the consumer experience,” said Arvin Patel, executive VP and chief intellectual property officer, Rovi Corporation, a TiVo company. “Samsung is one of the most recognized and revered brands in the world. We are excited to build on our tremendous relationship with Samsung as they continue to innovate across their smartphone and tablet product lines. We look forward to continuing to add value to Samsung’s current and future product offerings, and to creating the very best multimedia experience for our customers.”
Related: or TiVo, Painful Patent Fight Persists
TiVo has managed to sustain renewal of key technology patents as it battles Comcast in court, fending off what amounts to an existential threat to its patent business—the ability of a major telecom to not pay would certainly impact future renewals with other payees down the road.
During TiVo’s third quarter earnings call last month, Interim TiVo CEO Raghu Rau downplayed a series of recent rulings against his company.
Rau said the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which has sided with Comcast on a number of contested patents in recent months, is typically “unfriendly to patent holders,” anyway.
Rau said he’s “encouraged” regarding future rulings, given recent comments made by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office chief Andrei Iancu, a former intellectual property litigator who represented TiVo in the past. Rau said Ian has indicated his intention to “change the way the PTAB works to make it more equitable for inventors.”
Rau said TiVo plans to appeal recent PTAB decisions to invalidate a number of patents over which TiVo has sued Comcast.
“Importantly,” he added, “these PTAB challenges and results have not changed the prior ruling that required Comcast to remove the remote recording capabilities.”
In October, the PTAB invalidated Patent No. 8,578,413, which deals with remote scheduling of DVR recordings. This was the same patent that TiVo received a favorable ruling on a year ago from the International Trade Commission, leading Comcast to disable the feature in its X1 video operating system rather than pay licensing fees to TiVo.
As TiVo noted, Comcast would have to parlay the PTAB decision into a favorable federal court victory in order to clear a path to restoring the feature.
TiVo is battling Comcast in myriad venues in an important battle to get the cable operator to pay licensing fees on technologies it claims to own.
Through its merger with Rovi Corp. two years ago, TiVo controls thousands of patents, and virtually every other major pay TV operator pays licensing fees for them. But that lucrative business would unravel if Comcast were to succeed in court and avoid paying fees to TiVo.
As TiVo noted, Comcast would have to parlay the PTAB decision into a favorable federal court victory in order to clear a path to restoring the feature.
TiVo is battling Comcast in myriad venues in an important battle to get the cable operator to pay licensing fees on technologies it claims to own.
Through its merger with Rovi Corp. two years ago, TiVo controls thousands of patents, and virtually every other major pay TV operator pays licensing fees for them. But that lucrative business would unravel if Comcast were to succeed in court and avoid paying fees to TiVo.
