TiVo has won its lawsuit against Comcast in a row involving the technology vendor’s patents.
Judge MaryJoan McNamara from the International Law Commission ruled that Comcast infringed on TiVo’s claims made for Patent No. 7,779,011, “Method and system for dynamically processing ambiguous, reduced text search queries and highlighting results thereof.”
The ruling is similar to one rendered by the ITV in November 2017, which also found in favour of TiVo and against Comcast. The resulting exclusion order from that ruling convinced Comcast to deactivate a remote recording feature in its X1 video platform.
However, Judge McNamara’s latest ruling still must be reviewed by the full ITC Commission before another formal exclusion order would be levied against Comcast.
“We are thrilled by yet another legal victory,” said Arvin Patel, executive VP and chief intellectual property officer at Rovi Corporation, a TiVo company. “This decision demonstrates Comcast’s repeated infringement of Rovi’s patents. We hope that today’s decision will encourage Comcast to pay the necessary licensing fees so their customers can once again access advanced cable features.”
McNamara dismissed TiVo’s claims in regard to Patent No. 9,369,741, “Interactive television systems with digital video recording and adjustable reminders”; and Patent No. 7,827,585, “Electronic program guide with digital storage.” Claims made by TiVo on five other patents were thrown out earlier.
“We view today’s initial determination to be a victory for Comcast because the administrative law judge found no violation as to two of the three patents addressed,” Comcast said in a statement. “We look forward to the full Commission’s review of the one remaining patent later this year, but we are confident, regardless, this ruling will not disrupt our service to our customers. Rovi also was unsuccessful on five other patents that it had previously withdrawn from this case. We will continue to resist Rovi’s efforts to force Comcast and our customers to make unreasonable payments for ageing and obsolete patents.”
