TiVo Reports New Recorder Patents

TiVo Inc. of San Jose announced Tuesday two new patents in the field of personal video recorders, even as a significant competitor threatened to sue the company in a separate patent dispute.

The new patents cover “trick play”--the ability to pause, rewind and fast-forward live television broadcasts--and a technique for connecting streaming media devices to home networks.

The announcement helped drive up TiVo shares 17%, or 78 cents, to close at $5.26 on Nasdaq.

Although TiVo has received several patents in the field, so have a number of other companies. One of them is Sonicblue Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., whose chief executive Tuesday threatened to sue TiVo if the company didn’t strike a deal to license Sonicblue’s patented technology.

“It’s no longer acceptable not to enter into some kind of relationship, or we’ll sue them, quite frankly,” Ken Potashner, CEO of Sonicblue, told Reuters.

Sonicblue claims its patents cover several basic elements of a personal video recorder, which uses a hard drive instead of video tape to store television shows.

Sonicblue’s shares closed up 33 cents, or 8.7%, at $4.13, also on Nasdaq.

TiVo said it was not talking to Sonicblue, although it didn’t rule out future discussions.

“As the market leader for digital video recording, we have a strong intellectual patent portfolio that protects our technology. Our announcement today of additional patent grants, along with those we’ve made throughout the year, reinforces this IP leadership,” said Jim Barton, TiVo’s chief technology officer.

Barton appears to have overstated TiVo’s position in the market, however. But Marc Lumpkin of EchoStar Communications Corp., which operates the DishNetwork satellite TV service, said EchoStar expects to sell 1 million recorders by the beginning of next year, while TiVo’s most recent financial report indicates 280,000 subscribers at the end of October.

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Bloomberg News and Reuters were used in compiling this report.