Comcast denied TiVo patents review
June 26, 2020
By Chris Forrester
The US Supreme Court has denied a review requested by Comcast over its long-running patents argument with TiVo/Rovi.
The Comcast appeal request was seeking to overturn the decision by a Federal Court in March that endorsed the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC) opinion which ruled that Comcast could not import its X1 set-top boxes – supplied by CommScope/Arris and Technicolor – unless they comply with the TiVo patents (applicable TiVo patents are 8,006,263 and 8,578, 413).
The patents cover TiVo’s interactive guides and permit the user to control the DVR functionality remotely.
Comcast was trying to argue that simply importing the boxes was not an infringement. Besides, it argued, only some 1 per cent of its subscribers actually used the remote-control facility. It also pointed out to the Supreme Court that TiVo/Rovi had claimed a total of 37 patents had been used by Comcast and that many of the claims had been held as being invalid.
Not helping matters is that the patents in dispute are now expired. Nevertheless there are still claims outstanding from TiVo to Comcast on patent infringements.
TiVo is now merged with Xperi.