AT&T settles TiVo patent dispute

digital video recorder technology, PCWorld reports.

TiVo, in Alviso, California, in August 2009 filed a patent infringement complaint against AT&T in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall division, in which it stated that AT&T infringed three of its patents, including US Patent No. 6 233 389, entitled: "Multimedia time warping system".

The settlement comes a few months after TiVo settled with Dish Network and EchoStar in a similar case that involved TiVo's time-warp technology, which allows the user to store selected television broadcast programmes while simultaneously watching or reviewing another programme.

TiVo shares jumped $1.38, or 15.5%, to $10.30 in after-hours trading on the news, Chicago Sun Times notes.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement that the agreement “acknowledges the value of our intellectual property”.

The trial in TiVo's litigation with AT&T was scheduled to begin this month, Multichannel reports. TiVo also has litigation pending with Microsoft, Verizon Communications and Motorola Mobility.

TiVo sued AT&T and Verizon in August 2009 alleging infringement of the Time Warp patent as well as two other TiVo-owned patents: US Patent Nos. 7 529 465 ("System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams") and 7 493 015 ("Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System").