TiVo announced fresh patent infringement suit against Comcast, alleging its X1 TV platform infringes certain patents held by TiVo company Rovi. The company also applied for an order from the International Trade Commission to ban imports of the X1 set-top boxes in the US.
TiVo already won an initial ruling and exclusion order from the ITC last year. It's now filed new patent infringement lawsuits against Comcast in the US District Court for the Central District of California and the US District Court for Massachusetts.
The lawsuits allege that Comcast’s X1 platform infringes technology invented and patented by Rovi, including pausing and resuming shows on different devices, restarting live programming in progress, advanced DVR recording features, and advanced search & voice functionality. The patents involved in the new complaints represent a "very small component" of Rovi’s worldwide patent portfolio, the company said.
TiVo said the aim of the suits is to convince Comcast to renew its licence for access to Rovi's technology.
In addition to the court cases, Rovi plans to file an additional legal action with the ITC regarding the same patents, and will be seeking an exclusion order preventing infringing X1 set-top boxes from continuing to be imported into the US. In November 2017, the ITC ruled that Comcast infringed two Rovi patents and issued an exclusion order, effectively barring the import and sale of infringing X1 set-top boxes.
