This Is Not the TiVo Victory You're Looking for

• Report this Comment On April 25, 2011, at 12:16 PM, bigdon2950 wrote:

  Two things you leave out is Echostar and Tivo could reach and agreement before the 30 day disablement. The other thing is the district court judge that the case goes back to is the same judge that has ruled against Echostar twice already. IMO.

• Report this Comment On April 25, 2011, at 12:19 PM, DavisFreeberg wrote:

  I disagree with your assessment. If you read through the opinion, the judges basically say that the old standard to determine whether or not infringement was continuing, was flawed in that it looked at the technical aspects of change, instead of examining whether or the feature itself changed. They then go on to state, that despite the "parsing" arguments made by Echostar, they feel the feature hasn't really changed (being able to record live TV while watching time shifted programing), but that the lower court needs to make that determination officially using the new standard instead of the old. The significance of this new test is that TiVo no longer has to fight over a few lines of changed code and can instead argue that "technical" workarounds still violate their patents (how can you have a DVR that won't record live TV when you watching something else?) Ultimately, I think it strengthens TiVo's position and is very likely to go TiVo's way yet again when the lower court ruled. If the lower court didn't buy into the changes that Dish made with the technical argument, I don't see the features argument changing anything. Going forward, it will make it much harder to companies to play the cat and mouse infringement whack a mole game because judges will have more leeway on how they look at the changes made.

• Report this Comment On April 25, 2011, at 2:09 PM, TMFZahrim wrote:

  Hey Davis, long time no see. I agree with your reading of the court opinion, and agree that TiVo should collect handsomely at the end of this long-running drama. I'm still selling the stock when that happens, though, because I don't see DVR tech staying relevant in the onrushing age of digital delivery. Centrally managed DVR equivalents have failed court tests before but should make a comeback, and then there's the Netflix model -- publishing content online as opposed to recording it anywhere.

  So, we're at least in the same chapter, though perhaps on different pages.

  Anders

• Report this Comment On April 25, 2011, at 6:21 PM, cfrdog wrote:

  Anders, thanks for your thoughts. I agree, not the pop we are looking for. I think Tivo will prevail in the end (just hope the end is near). I'm not sure I agree w/ you on DVR technology. I don't have numbers but I would bet penetration on DVRs is still low. Streaming is nice (no need to record) but the abilty to record a baseball game or any other show out there that isn't available via streaming I think is still going to be desired. Why just completely shelve the technology? I think Tivo is making advancements to have streaming, recording, basically everything you can think of one box. Not sure they can charge $20 per month for this but I think the idea of a single box isn't going to go away for a long time. If not a box then their software built into TV's? My basic argument is you can't stream everything...

• Report this Comment On April 25, 2011, at 9:59 PM, TMFZahrim wrote:

  @cfrdog, you can indeed not stream everything -- yet. My thinking is that we should and will be able to somewhere in the not-too-distant future. And then it'll take another few years to move consumers off into the new paradigm -- I mean, the last tape deck in a production car was shipped in 2010, and I've seen Blu-ray plus VHS combo players. But the niche will shrink, and quickly.

  @davis, I just figured out that you might be reacting to the title of this article. I meant that TiVo will win, but this particular decision was not the final victory we've been waiting for. Sorry if that was unclear.

  Anders

• Report this Comment On April 26, 2011, at 10:00 AM, kstoltz wrote:

  I decided to sell my shares of TIVO after the decision that took the shares around $12. Not the victory I was hoping for, but enough for a short term gain that made the investment worthwhile. But the reason I finally pulled the trigger was the likelihood that this remains in litigation hell for some time. During that time, I expect continued red ink on TiVO's financial statements. The longer this drags out, the more damage done to TIVO's stock, and the more likely that when the "final" decision is made, the less of a pop for the stock. Better investments to be made elsewhere, IMO.

• Report this Comment On April 26, 2011, at 12:30 PM, DavisFreeberg wrote:

  @anders, I was partially reacting to the title, but also to the statement that it's not a slam dunk for TiVo. I think it was. The ruling removed a significant impediment to TiVo's patent strategy (workarounds) and made it clear that even if Dish had a legitimate beef with the judge, they waited too long to object to it. While the appeals court sent the case back to the district court, they all but instructed the court to reassess the fine. Most importantly, the ability for TiVo to enforce their injunction can now go live. The supreme court already declined to hear the case once, there's no way that they change their mind now that the issues have been narrowed down to court protocol instead of patent issues. If you believe that TiVo will settle, then the injunction means nothing, if you believe they'll use it to outlaw the DVR at Dish, then it will be worth billions to TiVo. As far as the DVRs days being numbered, I think you're looking too far out into the future. The bottleneck right now isn't technology it's digital rights issues. Fair Use rights will remain important for a very long time which means that the DVD and the DVR will be around for another 10 - 20 years at least.

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