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Microsoft Sues TiVo - The Why of It

By Pamela Jones et al.

Microsoft filed a patent infringement suit against TiVo late yesterday. Microsoft says it's really about defending AT&T, which is one of the companies TiVo has already sued over patents. TIVO says it is too. From the San Jose Business Journal:

The action is seen as being related to a lawsuit that Alviso-based TiVo filed against AT&T Inc., claiming the company's U-Verse TV service illegally uses its "time-warping" technology in its digital video recorders.

TiVo is involved in similar disputes with Verizon Communications Inc., the Dish Network and EchoStar Corp. AT&T service uses Microsoft technology for video delivery and digital recording.

That's, in my view, Microsoft spin, that it's doing this to help out AT&T. I would describe it more like this: remember when SCO sued AutoZone for using Linux in its business? AutoZone didn't write Linux. It just used it. So SCO sued an end user. Similarly, TiVo is suing AT&T. But AT&T didn't write Microsoft Mediaroom, the implicated software. Microsoft did. So naturally, AT&T has demanded that Microsoft indemnify AT&T, and so here comes Microsoft, essentially defending itself, because if AT&T loses, it's Microsoft who has to shell out the bucks.

Full post as published by Groklaw on January 20, 2010 (boomark / email).