Tivo Gets $215 Million Patent Settlement From AT&T

symbolset writes "Slashgear is reporting that Tivo has achieved a settlement in their patent lawsuit with AT&T. Tivo will receive the minimum sum of $215 million over six years — more if AT&T DVR subscribers go above a certain level. This settles a patent dispute going back to 2009 and has been covered here with some side issues. Confirmed by Tivo press release."

Comments

Re:DirecTV again?

[Monoman]

Maybe you missed it. http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/directvs-tivo-ready-to-return-december-8th-in-a-few-markets/

As a TiVo owner, even I look forward to TiVo dying

[AtariDatacenter]

My latest... no, my last purchase of a TiVo was the Premier with lifetime service. The unit is riddled with bugs.

I never expect them to get the second CPU core enabled. It is short of RAM. It bogs down. It ignores the remote for a while when you sit back down in front of the couch (which I suspect is because the OS swap out the remote control's handler process during a memory shortage). It crashes. It has a bare-bones Netflix interface that likes to crash. The high definition user interface is STILL incomplete, with many screens dropping back down to standard definition. The Amazon Video interface can't do free Prime movies. Only purchases. The non-discrete directional buttons on the remote makes for regular menu selection mistakes. If your Internet connection goes down, your locked out of much of the unit's functionality until you return.

I could go on and on about all the problems with their product. And I see that other people have their own observations. TiVo isn't in the game of producing a product/service that consumers want. We are actually just what they're selling. Collecting eyeballs for add space. And then adding bullet points for new features with minimal functionality and playing the patent race game.

Admittedly, the only good thing to come out of them recently was the iPad TiVo remote control. Nicely done. But then, they weren't doing it for their customers, I'm sure, as much as they were trying to beef up their patent portfolio, probably vs Apple.

If TiVo dies tomorrow, I won't be sad. I'll go back to the cable company's DVR and I'd enjoy it. Having all the pre-paid hardware and service is the only thing keeping me holding on. TiVo once put the customer first, but they lost sight of us. Too bad. These days, TiVo owners don't make great evangelists for their product.

What!? Patent Litigation actually serving justice?

[Lashat]

In this day and age of overly broad patents and frivolous lawsuits, this case decision is actually justified.

TiVo was THE first to develop and market the DVR way back when it you would "TiVo" your favorite shows instead of using that piece of modern archeology called a VCR. Soon after TiVo's initial success, the knock-off competitiors really diminished the TiVo's success.

I even like that they get a bump in cash payments when AT&T gets more subscribers.

Now if some company would come along and make it easy for me to off load my recordings to my personal harddisk we would have fully replaced the VCRs capabilities. I hate losing my recordings if my STB goes out and simple storage expansion would be nice.